*Faculty of Humanities (ETDs)
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Browsing *Faculty of Humanities (ETDs) by SDG "SDG-16: Peace, justice and strong institutions"
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Item How are the relationships between South African universities and development understood?(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2022) Molebatsi, Palesa MalehlohonoloMany development scholars argue that universities can and should address societal problems of poverty, inequality and unemployment. There is international literature that argues, in particular, two things: firstly, that certain economies thrive because they are knowledge driven; and secondly, that universities play a central role in preparing workers for the labour market. That same literature also goes on to argue that under-developed countries should emulate these economies, because this is a good way of achieving development. Thus, an increasing number of researchers and policy-makers in South Africa are interested in how universities do today, and can in the future, contribute to development. Empirical studies have been conducted analysing the relationship between South African universities and development. Yet, the evidence that exists, while useful, remains superficial. Specifically, it gives partial or incomplete analyses of the dynamics underlying the relationships between universities in South Africa, and development. The purpose of this study is to build an understanding of those dynamics. I develop an extended analytic framework with three ideal types (The Abstract University, the Entrepreneurial University and the Developmental University) and analyse two data sets, with the main finding that South African universities do not make significant entrepreneurial or developmental contributions to development. Simultaneously, they are expected to perform more welfare activities as part of their functions. I argue that a Welfare ideal-type university is emerging in South Africa which seems to undermine the essential core of the university: the development and acquisition of knowledge. A floundering can be observed with respect to the purpose, the norms and the form of the university in South Africa, with the result that the role of universities is increasingly loosely defined. This analysis illuminates a specific aspect of the relationship between universities and development in South Africa, namely that it is a two-way one: different approaches to development nationally and within universities lead to changes in the nature of the university, which in turn affects development. In the case of South Africa, where emphasis is placed on welfare activities, the question arises whether universities will continue to be universities in the futureItem Justice as Recognition in the Ecological Community(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2022-06) Francis, RomainThis 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.Item Love, Care, and Cure: Economies of Affect in a Zimbabwean Transnational Pentecostal Church(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-09) Thonje, Admire; Katsaura, ObviousThis 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.