2. Academic Wits University Research Outputs (All submissions)
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Item Local Councillors: scapegoats for a dysfunctional participatory democratic system? Lessons from practices of local democracy in Johannesburg.(Critical Dialogue: Public Participation in Review., 208) Benit Gbaffou, ClaireThis paper starts with the study of participation patterns in different neighbourhoods in Johannesburg, and demonstrates that institutional channels (be it representative democracy, or various participatory institutions and instruments) are currently not working in Johannesburg. Be it in low income or high-income areas, suburbs or townships, residents have to resort to other means, sidelining in particular their ward councillor, to be heard. We question the reasons for this lack of bottomup dialogue, focusing on the figure of the ward councillor as a supposedly key link between residents and local government, but however not able to play his/her role. We contest the dominant vision that the failure of participatory democracy in South Africa is the consequence of a lack of training, education or democratic culture, and we argue that both the limited power of ward councillors in Council, and the lack of incentive for fostering their accountability in front of voters, make local democracy institutions dysfunctional. More broadly, we question the lack of importance of participatory democracy in the ANC and in the government agenda, despite the political discourses claiming the contrary.Item City of Johannesburg. Brief History of the Development of its system of Government(Public Relations Officer, City Hall, P.O.Box 1049, Johannesburg, 1967) Public Relations Office, City Hall, JohannesburgOn 8th September, 1886, Paul Kruger, president of the Transvaal Republic, signed a proclamation declaring several farms, including Randjieslaagte, on the Witwatersrand ("Ridge of White Waters") public gold diggings. The biggest gold rush in history began to what was until then a piece of bare veld and rocky outcrop.Item Carlton Centre Limited. Statistics and General Information Relating to Carlton Centre(Johannesburg City Coucil, City Engineer., 1970-09-11) Johannesburg PD/MGS/GSFThe promotors of Carlton Centre are the Anglo American Corporation of South Africa, Limited and The South African Breweries Limited...The excavation necessary to permit the construction of the below ground levels was one of the largest ever undertaken anywhere in the world for a commercial building project.Item Critical discourse analysis as a research tool.(1997) Janks, HilaryItem Constitutional Authority to enforce the rights of Administrative Justice and access to Information(Juta, 1997) Klaaren, JonathanAnalysis of the constitutionality of two sections of the Bill of Rights.Item Statistics(1997-09-18) Klaaren, JonathanThis section provides some descriptive statistics on the work of the Constitutional Court in the past year.Item Reading Womanpower.(1998) Janks, HilaryItem Teaching procedural jurisdictional facts(Juta, 1998) Klaaren, JonathanTeaching procedural jurisdictional facts.Item RE-VIEWING THE TROPICAL PARADISE: AFRO-CARIBBEAN WOMEN FILMMAKERS(Northwestern University, 1998) Ebrahim, HaseenahThis dissertation presents a new conceptual framework, a "pan-African feminist" critical model, to examine how Euzhan Palcy of Martinique, Gloria Rolando and the late Sara Gómez of Cuba, and the Sistren Collective of Jamaica have negotiated - individually or collectively - the gender/race/class constraints within each of their societies in order to obtain access to the media of film and video. I examine the aesthetic, political, social and economic strategies utilized by these filmmakers to reinsert themselves into recorded versions of history, and/or to intervene in racist, (neo)colonial and/or patriarchal systems of oppression.Item Afrocuban religions in Sara Gomez's one way or another and Gloria Ronaldo's Oggun(The Western Journal of Black Studies, 1998) Ebrahim, HaseenahThis paper explores the depiction of Afrocuban religions in two films - Sara Gomez's One way or another(1974/1977) and Gloria Rolando's Oggun: Forever present(1991).A (Western) feminist's analysis of Gomez's One way or another characterizes Abakua and Santeria as "voodoo" - not only collapsing three different Afro-Carribean religious traditions, but also reflecting Marxistbiases that exclude (ironically) a recognition that Gomez's depictions of Abakua and Santeria reflect a gendered perspective.Rolando's Oggun reflects a recent trend in Cuban cinema to celebrate Afrocuban religious practices.Oggun's stunning visuals, compelling song and dance sequences, and fascinating mythology provoke a desire to understand the role and impact of this remarkable religious tradition in Cuban society.Item Africanity and Orality in the Films/Videos of Women Filmmakers of the African Diaspora(Deep Focus: A Film Quarterly, 1998) Ebrahim, HaseenahIn this essay, I consider the role of African cultural heritage and of oral tradition in selected films/videos by women filmmakers of the African Diaspora. for practical purposes, I limit the scope of my analysis to the works of a handful of filmmakers in the United States and the Caribbean: Julie Dash (USA), Euzhan Palcy (Martinique/France), Zeinabu irene Davis (USA), and Gloria Rolando (Cuba).Item Teaching direct and reported speech from a critical language awareness (CLA) perspective.(1998) Wilkinson, Lynda; Janks, HilaryItem Constitutional court statistics for the 1998 term(Juta, 1999) Klaaren, Jonathan; Dagut, Helen; Mochaba, Khahliso; Phalane, Jack; Singh, AnushkaDescriptive statistics on the work of the Constitutional Court for the 1998 term.Item Redlight, Greenlight- Fedsure Life Assurance v Greater Johannesburg Transitional Metropolitan Council, Premier, Mpumalanga v Executive Committee, Association of State-Aided Schools, Eastern Transvaal(Juta, 1999) Klaaren, JonathanCommentary on the administrative law aspects of two decisions heard in the Constitutional Court. Does the right of administrative justice found an independent cause of action or one that is co-extensive with judicial review on administrative law principles.Item Housing for the poor? Negotiated housing policy(Elsevier, 2001) Huchzermeyer, MarieOfficial discussion and negotiation on housing policy in South Africa was closed in 1994 with the launch of the new Housing White Paper. Contradictions in this policy between housing procedure and delivery target have limited its relevance to the poorest sector in society. The paper shows how these tensions between product and process are an outcome of negotiated policy-making, in which the attempt was to combine the dominant position of the private sector for the commodi"cation of housing, with people-centred housing procedures advocated by the democratic movement. In the second term of ANC government, the housing ministry, aware of some of the limitations of its policy, stated its intention to review the housing policy. This has led to renewed discussion. The paper traces shifts and continuities in recent positions on housing in South Africa. It traces their emergence from within the democratic movement including labour and community or civic organisation, the more recent Homeless People's Federation/People's Dialogue alliance, and the private sector with its in#uential Urban Foundation and subsequent policy research institutes. The paper argues that shifts in housing "nance have largely ignored the needs of the poorest sector in society. Further, the inadequately integrated location of subsidised development for the poorest remains unchallenged. The perception of local government merely as implementer in a centralised programme limits the ability to address local realities, also imposing bureaucratic constraints on community-based construction. In addition, an evasive discourse on squatting does not lend itself to the formulation of mechanism of intervention oriented around the needs of the poor. These limitations in addressing poverty through housing policy should inform future research on shelter in South Africa. 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.Item Towards a South African Injury Costing Model(DOAJ, 2002) Bowman, BThe costs of injury are of obvious importance for the purposes of priority setting in prevention planning by policy makers and stakeholders in general. The economic costs of injury and death have been the focus of considerable international attention in recent years. Localisation of these studies and their methods to the South African injury context, however, remains largely underdeveloped. The costing of fatal and non-fatal injuries in South Africa consists of a number of initiatives undertaken by various segments of both the public and private sectors. This article will review the existing literature devoted to the estimation of costs in various sectors of the South African morbidity and mortality contexts, with a view to illustrating the manner in which this information informed both provisional processes and structure for the implementation of a nationwide South African injury costing project. The literature is examined across three primary dimensions: the precise object of the study, the method employed in the costing of that object, and the sample coverage of the method. The findings of the review indicated a number of significant entry-points for the development of a local South African costing model. A preponderance of direct medical costing, significantly discrepant expenditure figures between the public and private health care systems and blurring of distinct costing concepts are problematic themes throughout the review of the literature. This article illustrates the manner in which the identification of the problems and promises of these existing costing studies informed the sites, injury types and methodology selected for development and implementation of a National South African Injury Costing Project.Item Critical literacy: Beyond reason.(2002) Janks, HilaryIn this paper, I argue that critical literacy is essentially a rationalist activity that does not sufficiently address the non-rational investments that readers bring with them to texts and tasks. I begin by looking at playful advertising texts that work with humans and the transgressive in order to consider the role of pleasure rather than reason. Then I examine the force of powerful identifications in relation to reason to show that educational inventions cannot ignore them. Finally, I tentatively suggest that we may need to find ways to combine socio-cultural and psycho-analytic theory in order to imagine new directions for pedagogy in the critical literacy classroom.Item The administration of justice(Juta, 2002) Klaaren, Jonathan; Marcus, Gilbert; Davis, DennisThe Immorality Amendment Act 2 criminalized prostitution in 1998. It did so by the insertion of s 20(1)(aA) into the principal Act, which it renamed the Sexual Offences Act 23 of 1957.Item The South African Bill of Rights and the Development of Family Law(Juta Law, 2002) Bonthuys, ElsjeFamily law is probably the area of South African private law which has expanded and changed most rapidly in the past nine years. Many of these changes have come about as a result of the enactment of a Bill of Rights in both the interim and the final Constitution. 1 On the one hand, this is not surprising, since family law contains many legal rules which are overtly discriminatory on the bases of sex, gender, culture, religion and sexual orientation. On the other hand, legal rules in this area represent a codification of moral and social norms in the quotidian and 'private' lives of many people, which are often resistant to scrutiny and change.Item The administration of justice(Juta, 2003) Klaaren, Jonathan; Marcus, Gilbert; Davis, DennisOverview and analysis of the year's legal developments in the field of administration of justice. Includes references to legislation, cases and journal articles.