Electronic Theses and Dissertations (PhDs)

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Decriminalising Sex Work: The Politics of Policy-Making in South Africa 1994 - 2019
(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024-04-19) Gathercole, Corey Sarana Spengler; Dube, Siphiwe I.
Sex Work in South Africa This thesis explores feminist viewpoints regarding sex work, delving into the intricate web of gender, race, and class within the unique historical context of South Africa (SA). Its central mission guiding the research was to identify, investigate, and shed light on the factors that had impeded the commitment and execution of sex work decriminalisation by the African National Congress (ANC) government. With a specific focus on the prevailing legislative framework in SA, which criminalised the sex industry, the thesis scrutinises the rationale behind this approach and assessed its suitability within the SA context. Additionally, it underscores the adverse repercussions of sex industry criminalisation on sex workers while questioning its effectiveness in achieving its intended goal of eradicating the sex work sector. Through a feminist lens, this research journey unraveled several root causes of the stagnation in SA's sex worker policy reforms. It explored the intricate dynamics of policy change, unveiling the stumbling blocks that hindered progress in the realm of sex worker policy. Given SA's distinctive historical landscape, characterised by a complex history of apartheid and racial inequality, the thesis argued that comprehending sex work in SA necessitated an examination of its inextricable connection to the country's socio-economic conditions. Moreover, the thesis conducts a comparative analysis of legislative frameworks in other countries where different approaches to sex work regulation had been adopted. Foucault's theory on the regulation of the body provides an invaluable framework for understanding the power dynamics at play within the context of sex work. It illuminates how the criminalisation of sex work was intertwined with exerting control over the female body, aligning with Foucauldian principles. The thesis investigates how these power dynamics sought to render those involved in sex work submissive, echoing traditional perspectives on body commodification. Drawing upon the history of SA and its tumultuous past, including the legacies of apartheid and the enduring effects of racial discrimination, this thesis contended that sex work in SA cannot be fully understood without considering its historical and socio-economic dimensions. It delves into the nuances of sex work policies in various countries, exploring models such as full decriminalisation, partial decriminalisation, and legalisation through both a feminist and Foucauldian lens. By examining these diverse approaches and their outcomes, the thesis provides valuable insights into the complex landscape of sex work regulation. As a comprehensive contribution to the study of existing legislative paradigms, this thesis addresses the pivotal question: "Why has the decriminalisation of sex work stalled in SA?" This inquiry gave insights into the complexities of policy change, the root causes of policy delays, and potential avenues for reforming sex work policy, all while considering the broader global context of sex work legislation and the implications of feminist and Foucauldian perspectives.
Experiences of Youth in Agrarian Transformation in Rural South Africa: A Case of Greenplanet Primary Cooperative in Orange Farm
(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2022-03) Chibonore, Wilma Claris; Kariuki, Samuel
This thesis advanced a qualitative approach to analyse the practices, structures and rationalities that inform youth engagement in agriculture drawing on evidence from Orange Farm in Gauteng Province of South Africa. The study takes off on the premise that there is low generational renewal in agriculture as the older and ageing generation makes the majority of active farmers yet farming holds great potential for creating youth employment whilst youth engagement in agriculture secures food of the future. The study finds that youth (dis)engagement and (dis)interest in farming is directly related to the availability and easy access to everyday support structures particularly those provided by the state and observes that many young people are in fact interested in farming but are currently operating in a structurally disabling environment amidst poor state support which does not allow for growth or access to key resources. The study finds that youth interest in farming exists although these interests are largely skewed towards technologically advanced farming systems and against backward manual farming systems therefore contradicting existing discourse as well as challenging the general narrative and consensus that youths are not interested in farming or that youth interest in farming is waning. The thesis reveals that young farmers understanding, interpretation and engagement with agricultural technology is based on their levels of exposure, location and access to resources. Poverty, structural limitations and marginalization experienced by the youth contribute significantly to their reception and perception of agriculture as a whole. The thesis argues for an agrarian developmental state approach towards the strengthening of agricultural opportunities and the relevant institutional structures and resources such as land, stipends, extension services, training, technology and market allocation to support youth farming in rural South Africa where the economies are generally stagnant and youth unemployment very high. This study observes that young people as active citizens and through utilising individual agency have the capacity to drive their own innovations within the agricultural sector when awarded the platform, opportunity and support to do so. The study reveals that the young farmers are ‘millennials’ who use their youth agency to engage in social networking facilitated by use of social media as a powerful tool for unity and resistance against unfavourable farming environments. Lastly, two contradictory perspectives on the impact of COVID-19 emerge in this study, one of COVID-19 having presented opportunities for growth and success for the young farmers and another of the pandemic having further marginalized and disrupted the already struggling young farmers with both narratives being shaped directly and indirectly by the pre-existing structural challenges. Methodologically, empirical data was mostly gathered through face to face semi-structured interviews, focus groups and conversations with the young farmers with the remainder of interviews having been conducted virtually via Skype, WhatsApp chats and WhatsApp calls upon the emergence of COVID-19 which converged with this study. Participant observation occurred through attending farmers meetings, agriculture tours, engaging in some farming activities on some sites as well as being part of the young farmers WhatsApp group. The thesis also relied on published journals, statistical reports, media reports, policy documents as well as videos from the public hearings regarding the amendment of the South African Constitution to allow for expropriation of land without compensation in order to bolster the empirical findings.
Governing Children in Street Situations in Pretoria: Vulnerability and Social Protection in South Africa
(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2022) Matarise, Fungai
The vulnerability of children in post-Apartheid South Africa has been a major issue in social and development policy debates for decades now. Children are situated within the wider notion of “Vulnerable Groups” that is a central tenet in South African public and development policy discourse. This thesis examines the vulnerability of children in street situations as defined in the Children’s Act no. 38. of 2005. Children in street situations are a distinct category of vulnerable children that has experienced and continues to experience countless privations on the streets across South Africa. The issue of children in street situations raises fundamental questions about the political, economic and social aspects of inequality, marginality, and social exclusion in the post-Apartheid state. Hence, a central question in debates surrounding the interventions of state agencies on children in street situations is to consider how social and public policy articulate in concrete ways the country’s commitment to social inclusion, social justice and the fight against inequalities. Yet, with specific reference to children in street situations, little is known about the legal, material and practical governance of these category of children in South Africa. This study examines the governance of Children in Street Situations in Pretoria– the administrative capital of South Africa. The Department of Social Development (DSD) is the main provider for social interventions in the country, including in Pretoria. This is an exploratory study, based on my field research with informants at the Department of Social Development (DSD) and related organisations working on addressing the issue of Children in Street Situations. The study combines data from face to-face interviews with social workers at the DSD and telephone conversations with non governmental organisations (NGOs) personnel alongside textual analysis of official documents, policy reports and guidelines, legal provisions and media reports. Using discourse analysis and a post structural deconstructive approach, the thesis examines and unpacks the value and limits of vulnerability as a critical and core concept in understanding social protection in South Africa’s public and development policy. The thesis argues that a critical approach to the conceptualisation of vulnerability in South African public and development policy is important because it frames the legal and institutional responses to categories of people perceived to be in need of social protection, including children in street situations. The thesis develops this argument empirically by analyzing and discussing the representations of children in street situations in South Africa along mostly negative perceptions of these children and underlines how these representations are important to the framing and practice of social protection in aw, legislation and social policy. Furthermore, in discussing some of the social interventions for children in street situations and the challenges involved for DSD workers, this study also finds that the social problem of children in street situations is defined by ambiguity: among social workers at the DSD there are divergent views on whether these children exist and pose a policy challenge or not. Against a generic conceptualisation of children as similarly characterized by vulnerability, the thesis suggests that a further disaggregation of children in street situations as children in a specific social situation is necessary to appreciate their special vulnerabilities and needs. This fits a purposive response, more effective and targeted initiatives in care and protection that enhance their capabilities and well-being of children in street situations.
Justice as Recognition in the Ecological Community
(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2022-06) Francis, Romain; Hamilton, Lawrence
This thesis postulates that an alternate mode of recognition is required to develop an authentic conception of justice that reconciles the subaltern’s desire for dignity with affording greater love, care, and respect for nature. Extant redistributive and recognitive justice frames within traditional western political theory and philosophy are strictly anthropocentric and restrict nature to a purely utilitarian function in the satisfaction of human needs. This maintains a moral hierarchy between humans and nature that perpetuates ecological injustice. Using decoloniality as both a method and critical analytical framework, this thesis develops and employs the coloniality of nature to illustrate that the continued destruction, exploitation, and disrespect for nature is fundamentally tied to the misrecognition of subaltern people. Misrecognition is a product of a deep-seated sociogenic problem of coloniality introduced during European colonisation, which consolidated the superior status of a hegemonic western subjectivity. Other experiences, knowledges, practices, and ways of articulating human-nature relations were rendered as non-scientific and superstitious and devoid of any value. The misrecognition of subaltern people denied humanity an opportunity to learn from other viewpoints and integrate them into an inclusive idea of justice where no single subjectivity assumes a dominant status. Centered on a decolonial love predicated on Fanon’s idea of “building the world of the You”, not the I, Us or We, this thesis draws on the principles of transculturalism and border thinking to promulgate a practical idea of justice as recognition in the context of an ecological community, that is more inclusive of other living and non-living entities. It advances a dialogical mode of recognition that attempts to achieve the following objectives: i) promote critical introspection amongst the subaltern to understand how their experience of (mis)recognition is connected to the destruction of nature, and how their attitudes towards nature were altered by the introduction of western modernity, capitalism and colonisation, ii) enable those social groups that are on the top of the ontological hierarchy to understand their role in such processes and how to address them, and iii) to demonstrate that increasing humanity’s love, care, and respect for nature is not possible without first addressing misrecognition between people.
Love, Care, and Cure: Economies of Affect in a Zimbabwean Transnational Pentecostal Church
(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-09) Thonje, Admire; Katsaura, Obvious
This thesis attends to affective relations as they manifest in local and transnational settings. The thesis’s empirical site is a Zimbabwe-founded Pentecostal church which is pseudonymised as Speak in Tongues (SIT). SIT has since grown to establish presence in South Africa, among a host of other countries. The research deployed a multi-sited ethnography whose spatial connections included Johannesburg, Pretoria, and the church headquarters in Gweru (Zimbabwe). Relying on purposively selected South African branches and their membership, ties among and ties between members and non-members are explored to reveal the formation of affective community, affective solidarity, and affective curatorship. These three affective relationalities emerge, solidify and in some instances disintegrate. In tracing the ties, the thesis highlights the productivity of affect. I argue that affective ties form and circulate in what I deem to be a relational economy of affect. For a start, affective community in this thesis emerges as the product of deliberate efforts by the leadership as well as discursive tools which shape the ways in which church relationalities members relate among themselves, as well as between members and their leaders. This is, however, not a straightforward endeavour because members negotiate and resist some of the efforts and discourses. As a result of the varied intensities of affective ties, notions of affective community tend to yield micro-communities even within the church as a group. The result are different sensibilities of affective solidarity. Affective solidarity’s variability is evident in how love is negotiated in the church as well as how members attend celebrations of love in weddings. Perhaps unsurprisingly then, some members require the intervention of fellow members and leaders to extend a form of affective pastoral care which is identified as ‘affective curatorship’. Affective curatorship is extended to members as an extension of the church’s care work. It is also extended to non-members as part of social outreach which ostensibly doubles as some form of proselytizing. In exploring these dimensions, the study engages the literature on affective relations (Pedwell, 2014; Röttger-Rössler & Slaby, 2018; von Scheve, 2018) via Sara Ahmed’s ‘affect economies’ to reveal the production of affective ties in social encounters that occur in the everyday. Contrary to scholarship which posits affect as a neutral and passive force which only appears in moments of encounter, the study spotlights the active production of affective ties in social contact. In the process, it reveals a vibrant life — an affective economy where affects and emotions are produced, circulated and sustained both in and outside of the church — around the selected Pentecostal church. The vibrant life lies beyond sensationalised miracles that hog the public limelight. In addition, the study shows through affective ties that the distinction between sacred and profane is very shaky. Affective ties bind believers and non-believers as they share social spaces as well as materials.
Occupational Stress and Burnout among Clinical Officers at Public Hospitals in Malawi: Impact Shifting to the General Public
(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-08) Chinguwo, Paliani; Kenny, Bridget; Matshiditsho, Rajohane; Scully, Ben
In Malawi, there is a cadre of mid-level health workers called clinical officers who undertake duties conventionally designated for medical doctors in the wake of an acute shortage of the latter. The use of clinical officers as substitutes for medical doctors is one example of a strategy called task shifting that is implemented as a temporary remedy for the shortage of human resources in healthcare. This is a study on the experiences of clinical officers with occupational stress and burnout at public hospitals in Malawi. The study adopted a qualitative research design with a case study as a research strategy. The study was conducted at four district hospitals and one central hospital, all of which are state-owned. One shortcoming of the framing of occupational safety and health in Malawi is the narrow scope and coverage of the regulation on occupational safety and health. This narrow scope of the regulation of occupational safety and health is limited to physical, chemical, and biological hazards. The psychosocial hazards are therefore neglected by the regulation on occupational safety and health. Another shortcoming of the framing of occupational safety and health in Malawi is that the coverage of the regulation on occupational safety and health exempts service sectors like healthcare. This exemption, therefore, gives the impression that healthcare in Malawi is immune to occupational safety and health hazards. This study challenges the narrow scope and coverage of the regulation on occupational safety and health in Malawi that neglects psychosocial hazards and exempts healthcare. The overall aim of the study was to expose the impacts on public health that can be associated with the neglect of psychosocial hazards and the exclusion of healthcare from the regulation of occupational safety and health. This study demonstrates that there are psychosocial hazards at public hospitals that predispose clinical officers to occupational stress and burnout. These are excessive workload, long hours of work, poor interprofessional relations, restructuring, COVID-19 responses, and the absence of occupational and safety management systems. The study further illustrates that psychosocial hazards at public hospitals are a breeding ground for various health problems among clinical officers that emanate from occupational stress and burnout. These health problems include emotional and cognitive effects; injuries; high blood pressure (hypertension); muscle tension or pain; and severe headaches. These health problems negatively affect the quality of life among clinical officers and their performance on the job. The study, therefore, concludes that occupational stress and burnout among clinical officers ultimately affect health outcomes in the broader population. For instance, the study demonstrates how the consequences of OS and burnout among clinical officers are consequently externalised to patients and the general public through the poor quality of healthcare services. In this study, the externalisation of the negative effects of occupational stress and burnout on clinical officers to the patients and the general public, is referred to as impact shifting. This study conceptualises and proposes a theoretical framework for analysing occupational safety and health in Malawi, with a particular focus on psychosocial hazards at public hospitals. The theoretical framework comprises three theoretical perspectives, namely: attribution theory, job demands-resources model, and fundamental cause theory. This study, therefore, offers a theoretical foundation and empirical evidence drawn from the experiences of clinical officers with occupational stress and burnout. The theoretical foundation and empirical evidence can inform the reframing of the scope and coverage of the regulation on occupational safety and health. Finally, this study also conceptualises and proposes a framework for the formulation of a comprehensive policy on occupational safety and health for public health facilities in the context of Malawi.
Rethinking the Logics of the Sex/Gender Anatomical Schema
(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-03) Nqambaza, Palesa Rose; Dube, Siphiwe
This dissertation is an appraisal of the dominant gender discourse(s) in selected South African anthropological, gender and feminist texts. It challenges the uncritical adoption of colonial sex/gender frameworks when making sense of indigenous ways and modes of being and proposes an Afrocentric alternative that goes beyond bio-logical frameworks. This study is two pronged. Firstly, it problematises the uncritical application of Western feminist theories that have tended to impose European realities on the African context. Secondly, it mines the indigenous archive for Afrocentric ideas that contribute to creating a uniquely African theory of subject formation that considers aspects important to the African world-sense such as seniority, kinship status and ancestral links. I make use of critical discourse analysis to analyse the dominant discourse(s) and knowledge on sex and gender within the context of what is today known as South Africa. I do this employing the Azanian philosophical tradition as the theoretical framework that informs the perspective from which I read and make sense of these discourses, using a mixture of textual analysis, linguistics, archival work, and historical method. Based on my reading of dominant gender discourses against textual, linguistic and historical evidence, I make the following arguments. Firstly, I problematise the blanket usage of the conceptual category of ‘woman’ to refer to colonised subjectivities. I demonstrate that Black womxn have been discursively constructed as existing outside the bounds of the conceptual category ‘woman’ who is the key subject of feminist theorising. Secondly, I demonstrate that the logics of the sex/gender anatomical schema, that organises men and women in a hierarchy, cannot account for indigenous modes of social organising. I maintain that African subjectivities are fluid, complex and contingent, depending on aspects such as one’s seniority, kinship status and ancestral links. Likewise, I invoke the institution of ubungoma as an additional site to demonstrate the inadequacy of the sex/gender anatomical framework in making sense of sangoma subjectivities. I also problematise the tendency to use LGBTQ languaging as an alternative in making sense of the institution of ubungoma. I maintain that while noble, this alternative framing is also implicated in underscoring the existence of a coherent sex/gender regime within which the institution of ubungoma is then assumed to be ‘queer’. I maintain that there is a pressing need to mine indigenous linguistic archives for alternative ways of wording indigenous subjectivities in ways that are not distortive, nor mimic Eurocentric versions.
Shifts, Changes and Continuities in Heritage Commemoration and Memorialisation of the 21 March 1960 Sharpeville Massacre: 1960-2010
(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023) Ngoaketsi, Joseph Mairomola; Lekgoathi, S.P
The Sharpeville Massacre was a key turning point in modern South African history. The massacre ended the non-violent civil rights-style political activism and flickered three decades of armed confrontation with the colonial apartheid regime. Most importantly, it became the catalyst for the declaration of apartheid as a crime against humanity by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in 1966. However, most of the studies on the massacre focus mainly on documenting the events of that day, and very little has been written about the historical re-presentations of the shooting beyond this. This study, therefore, aims to fill the lacuna in the re-presentation and observance of this event. It does so by not only complementing the existing literature but also looking at an area that has been grossly neglected, namely the diverse ways in which the killing has been observed over a period of five decades, starting from the 1960s to 2010. The study employs discourse analysis as well as critical and in-depth analyses of published secondary, historical and archival sources, including newspaper reports and commentaries on the 21 March Sharpeville Day commemorations. These sources are complemented by a large spread, and wide range of biographical sources, unstructured interviews, testimonials, informal discussions, and conversations with key local heritage activist respondents. The focus group consists of members of the Khulumani Support Group at the Sharpeville branch. The findings and conclusions of this study derive from observations of the anniversary commemorations of the massacre by ethnographic participants. The study utilises several theoretical frameworks, while the Life Narrative Interpretative theory of oral history lays the basis for this research venture. As the findings of this thesis bear out, the application of this theory converges oral history and collective memory studies. Other theories used in this study include Maurice Halbwachs’ theory of collective memory, which is located in nostalgia, individual testimony, oral history, tradition, myth, style, language, art, popular culture, and physical landscape. Émile Durkheim’s performance or ritual theory postulates that the past is represented and relived through rituals, and the relationship between the past and the present takes the form of a dramatic (re)presentation. The study observes that cultural rites conducted during memorialisation processes and annual observances of the Sharpeville massacre are marked by human arrangements of performances or viii ritual remembrances. The transitional justice theoretical discourse is applied in the study’s analysis of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission - a socio-political initiative devoted to fact-finding, reconciliation and memory culture. It concludes that memorialisation processes and rituals are communal reflexes for survivors of the Sharpeville Massacre and families of the victims. Contrary to assertions by notable Sharpeville Massacre historians, this day was not observed between 1964 and 1984, despite an international commemorative tradition that developed beginning from 1966. The study observes that during the 1960s, the Human Rights Society, an affiliate of the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS), commemorated Sharpeville Day even at the height of state repression. It demonstrates that it was the Black Consciousness Movement family of organisations that popularised the commemoration of Sharpeville Day, calling it Heroes Day during the 1970s. The observance of this day took the form of church services, cemetery visitations and political rallies. The study notes that with the formation of the Congress Movement-aligned civic structure in the form of the United Democratic Front, Sharpeville Day was used as a platform to openly defy the apartheid government and undermine its institutions. The 1990s was a period of political transition in South Africa, and the study analyses commemorations of the Sharpeville Massacre during this decade. In the context of the unbanning of liberation movements, observances of this day took place in a more politically tolerable landscape. During the first half of this decade, commemorations of Sharpeville Massacre revealed the deep-seated political and ideological differences between the African National Congress and Pan Africanist Congress former liberation movements turned political parties in the early 1990s after their unbanning. The study observes that this day was used during this period to garner support for the upcoming elections in 1994. Following the establishment of the Government of National Unity, the hegemonic impulses of the African National Congress overrode long-held traditions of how Sharpeville Day was observed. The study highlights that from the year 1995, 21 March started to be observed as an official public holiday, later transforming into Human Rights Day, instead of being a solemn commemoration, as was the case before the democratic dispensation. The study further observes that during this decade, court-like restorative justice bodies, such as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, created a theatrical environment for victims of gross human rights violations. The ritualistic oral testimonies of those who appeared constituted a ix memorialisation process. Lastly, the study reveals that post-1994, Sharpeville commemorations possess distinct characteristics at the core of which are distortions of history, the watering down of other narratives and contributions, selective amnesia and the silencing of other voices on the part of the governing party. There are further contestations, grand narratives, commemorations, counter commemorations and counter-narratives regarding the memory of Sharpeville by both the African National Congress and the Pan Africanist Congress. In terms of material culture, the study highlights how this tangible feature of Sharpeville’s memory is characterised by official memorials and counter-memorials.
Strikes and eventful identities: South Africa’s public sector strikes, 2007 and 2010
(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-06) Ceruti, Claire Helen Mary; Kenny, Bridget
This is a study of rupture and its deflection in public striker identities over two politically charged strikes in 2007 and 2010. The thesis reconstructs each strike as a series of possibilities, taking a dynamic and temporal view attuned to the development of contradictions in a way sensitive to what else might realistically have developed out of these given ‘moments’ or conjunctures of forces. The data was gathered longitudinally in each strike and across the two strikes, which were three years apart, via interviews, observation and analysis of toyi-toyis and particularly photos, which were used to track slogans and their development. The thesis uncovers eventful identities beneath the rehabilitation or reconstitution, twice, of the strained Tripartite Alliance amongst the ruling party, the ANC, the main trade union federation (Cosatu) and the South African Communist Party; it also uncovers peculiarly relational classed imagery suggestive of exploitation even in simple strike-ready identities, entwining and subtly altering people’s more common everyday consumption-based models of class. The thesis traces strikers’ identities against the histories of each strike to find identities in punctuated dialogue with larger forces, thereby restoring the role of this kind of contradiction in processes of identity destabilisation as well as in eventfulness. The thesis finds that strikers’ identities were deformed in relation to the alliance by successive shocks over the course of the two strikes. The strikes did not rupture, but did puncture, the practice of the alliance. Despite a variety of deflections, faint reinterpellations percolated through these experiences. In the first strike, in 2007, the shock to identification with government, experienced by the strikers as well as the union officials, intensified as the strike continued and drove one aspect of a ‘power flip’ which I noted in the development of strikers’ discourse over the strike in a shift from entreating government, to asserting mutual dependence, to reversing the dependency - wanting to turn on its head the actually existing practice of the alliance by demanding a government that listens to workers – and at the same time conceiving the centrality of the strikers’ own work in relation to these powers. At the end of the first strike, the shock to identities with government was truncated by pragmatism and diverted and to the political kingdom, in the person of Zuma. But that deflection built up expectation for the restored alliance, and the second strike burst forth from disappointed expectations (a second shock to identities with government) to put Zuma to the test. This strike expressed mainly the political dimension of the power flip. The end of the strike incurred a third shock: a divergence in the strategic views of union officials from those of strikers, which occurred partly because the union leaders who had re-established loyalties and, they believed, influence within the alliance (partly because of the first strike). The de-identifications towards the end of this strike were deflected in more complicated ways. Although it appeared from a distance that the alliance had worked again to let off steam and iron over damage, that view overlooked how strikers’ identifications had taken damage in the double test of the ANC; at least some were in a liminal state I call identity damage, not having re-identified themselves but forced to imagine life outside the ANC. So the thesis overall illustrates the development of these eventful identities, which may survive the failure of an event to develop (a near event). The thesis thus, first, returns contradiction (and agency) to the study of eventfulness (rupture), as well as, through a finer view of deflection, examining why eventfulness often fails to develop; second, it foregrounds subjectivity in contradictory circumstances to stretch studies of classed identities and identity processes into an under-examined arena (strikes); and thereby, third, it adds an under-examined dimension -strikers’ subjectivities - to study of the cohesion/disintegration of the alliance and the unravelling of ANC hegemony to show that the alliance’s mechanisms of maintenance were also ‘storing up’ contradiction and damage to its future integrity. The concepts of misidentification and identity damage were developed to present identity processes in contradictory situations as punctuated and to refine understanding of rupture at the subjective level.
Sustaining the Unsustainable? Political Accountability and Development in sub-Saharan Africa’s Resource Economies
(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-07) Ndlovu, Xichavo Alecia; Alence, Rod
Sub-Saharan Africa’s development challenge is to ‘sustain the unsustainable’–using non-renewable resources to initiate long-term development processes that outlive the short-term proceeds of resource extraction. Literature has highlighted how differences in political institutions help determine whether natural resources help or hinder development. However, there is disagreement on which political institutions account for the variations in development outcomes. This study clarifies whether political regimes, electoral competitiveness, and party institutionalisation matter for inclusive and sustainable development using a sample of all sub-Saharan African countries for which data is available from 1990 to 2018. Specifically, do democracies perform better or worse on average than non-democracies? Do electorally competitive democracies perform better or worse than dominant-party (but still multiparty) democracies? Do more institutionalised party systems perform better or worse than less institutionalised party systems? In general, how, if at all, do different political accountability mechanisms affect inclusive and sustainable development? The study uses ‘nested’ analysis, which combines cross-national statistical analysis and case studies of four resource-rich democracies in Africa: Ghana, Zambia, Namibia, and Mozambique. The cross-national analysis shows that party institutionalisation is the only political predictor for social inclusiveness, and all political variables do not improve or worsen economic sustainability. On the other hand, resource rents are negatively associated with social inclusiveness but do not predict economic sustainability. Meanwhile, the non-rent sectors contribute positively to both dimensions of development, highlighting the potential significance of income levels in explaining the cross-national development patterns in Africa. Evidence in the case studies shows that electorally competitive democracies outperform dominant party democracies on social inclusiveness. The risk of being removed from office incentivises incumbents to provide public goods and increase social welfare. However, the impact of political accountability mechanisms on economic sustainability is ambiguous and may depend on sectoral institutions, policies and actors. The study contributes to (and bridges) two groups of literature, one investigating the economic consequences of politics and institutions and another accounting for the resource curse. It also considers both the inclusivity and sustainability aspects of development and highlights contextual factors from case studies, often overlooked in cross-national analyses.
The ‘social life’ of digital money: User experiences of mobile money in Manzini, Eswatini and Masvingo, Zimbabwe
(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-07) Mavodza, Emma; Katsaura, Obvious; Kenny, Bridget
Digital financial service innovations have long been hailed as a catalyst for financial inclusion and empowerment for the unbanked (Beck, et al, 2007; Anderlone and Vandone, 2010; Johnson and Arnold, 2012; Lahaye, et al. 2015; Jack and Suri, 2016; Dermiguc-Kunt et al, 2018; World Bank, 2018;). However, most of these studies assume that the current state of exclusion and lack of access to transformative financial services is a natural state in these communities. While socio-anthropological perspectives have helped to acknowledge the place of money in the socioeconomic lives of communities (Granovetter,1985; Callon, 1998; Zelizer, 1997; Comaroff and Comaroff, 2005; 2010; 2012; Maurer, 2008; Dodd, 2014), digital financial service innovations remain a bewilderment to many who attempts to understand them. Therefore, to examine the social life of mobile money, I gathered data for this qualitative study (in 2018 and 2019) in selected informal markets in Manzini where money supply and financial institutions are stable but inaccessible to many and Masvingo where liquidity constraints are the new order of the day. My qualitative analysis of the social life of mobile money from the global South is based on the in-depth interviews, photo voice and observational data sets. Drawing from a range of literature and my empirical data on the social cultural aspects of money, I argue that mobile money usage in the informal market spaces was articulated and imagined through existing social meanings, and it was used within specific socio-cultural constraints. The thesis presents this through an examination of four overarching themes; namely, mobile money sociality at the backdrop of informality and precarity, mechanisms of building trust and solidarity, the gendered layers of mobile money usage as well as the subtle, unscripted ways employed by participants to resist subjectification and full financialisation of their everyday lives. An important finding of this study is how mobile money continues to play a critical role in the ways through which these communities’ monetary repertoires are produced, historicised, and reproduced. Drawing on the evidence I gathered, I argue that, despite their assumed vulnerability, informal market participants were not docile adopters of mobile money but rather active constructors of their own digital money usage footprints in ways not envisaged by the service providers at inception. They showcased great ingenuity through their established cultural habits and sacred traditions on money use. Therefore, instead of taking assumed and imagined vulnerability as incapacitation and lack of agency, this study has implication for financial policy that focuses on the individual and mundane financial practices of the unbanked as critical for building transformative financial behaviours among this resourceful population segment. This research contributes to an understanding of how informal markets workers make sense of mobile money as they incorporate it in alignment with existing social meanings and existing financial practices at the backdrop of socio-economic precarity. Therefore, I bring new qualitative evidence and analysis from the global South to expand the definition of social life of digital money and financial inclusion (Ahmad et al., 2020). The study also highlights how the ubiquitous proliferation of mobile money and its intimate ties to the social lives of the participants has precipitated the rise of new forms of voluntary, freely given unwaged, immaterial labour which is unconsciously performed by the users as a collective.
YouTube: Video Commercialization, Value Creation and Identity
(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2021-12) Dlamini, Gabby Sipho; White, Hylton
Social media has been blamed for promoting unrealistic flashy lifestyles and an increase in influencer brand marketing. The outcome of this is said to put extreme pressure on individuals to maintain a certain lifestyle to the detriment of their self, promoting a performance of life rather than real life experiences, resulting in the breakdown of social bonds. Yet social media platforms such YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and many others are growing at considerable rates, despite all the critiques. The thesis overall questions how YouTube vloggers turn the intangible value of activities in everyday life into monetary income by attracting online audiences to their vlogs. The research is located as part of transformations taking place in late capitalism, that used to characterise the organisation of labour and, therefore, society in nineteenth and twentieth-century iterations of modern capitalist society; and the changing concepts of “private” and “public” that are described as part of the technological development and integration into our everyday lives. This thesis traces the changing structures and relationships between YouTube, YouTubers and viewers as the economy of YouTube has continued to grow. Whilst influencer brand marketing and social media reach are popularly viewed as detrimental to the individual and society, this thesis argues against this general view. Instead, I argue that in the wake of influencer marketing and the financial economies, embedded within YouTube and other social media, new ways of being and belonging are being negotiated. This thesis, using ethnographic data, focuses on these new ways of being and belonging by explaining how ideas of value, suspicion, affect, and digital footprint are factors in creating online community ties and online identities that continue inside and outside of the online space.

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