ETD Collection

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    The Effects of Reparations on Reconciliation and the Ends of Justice: the South African case
    (2019) Nhlapo, Tokelo Julius
    South Africa’s first multiracial and democratic elections in 1994 succeeded nearly half a century of institutionalised racial discrimination and oppression under apartheid which left hundreds of thousands disadvantaged. As a consequence of a political settlement between the negotiating parties, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was established through an Act of Parliament to uncover the causes, nature and extent of gross violations of human rights in and outside the country. In an effort to balance the moral predicament of affording amnesty to perpetrators, the TRC also recommended reparations for victims of gross violations of human rights. This report argues that the overreliance on judicial means, to resolve political questions of marginalisation and repression was inadequate. Consequently, the TRC’s recommendation for reparations determined by a legal imagination therefore aimed at only direct victims of the consequences of the crime of apartheid to the exclusion of many. Using first-hand experience of participants as well as secondary material, the report concludes that the TRC reparations recommendations’ failure to deal with the interconnectedness of apartheid violations, manifests in South Africa’s increasing racial hostilities, racialised poverty and inequality 25 years into democracy. Because poverty and inequality disproportionately affects previously marginalised groups, as well as government’s failure to provide adequate reparations that meaningfully restore victims sense of dignity and moral worth, perceptions of reconciliation and justice are significantly undermined.
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    Editorial Policies and the development of isiXhosa :how is isiXhosa being developed in post-Apartheid South Africa by Private Print Media Institutions
    (2018) Njeje, Mbuyekezo
    The Maintenance and Revival of isiXhosa print media in South Africa has been left to conglomerate media companies that do not have editorial policies that address their development. These companies are preserving isiXhosa the language they invest in isiXhosa print media to make money of the language. The development of the language is not catered for they are in the business of copies of magazines and newspapers. However, they should not be faulted for this area of indigenous language print media has long been neglected by black business men. From the history of African language print media it shows that this media is sustainably profitable if one is to look at purely the side of media. Ilanga lase Natal is testament to that it is now 116 years the paper has been in print it change ownership several times but that did not prompt the paper to cease existing. This is what unfortunately has happened to isiXhosa newspapers that were famous and influential in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It seems that once they got into the exchange of ownership conflict would ensue this is probably because they were very influential politically and everybody was interested in controlling its audience. Now isiXhosa finds itself to be at the mercy of media companies that are English and Afrikaans language oriented and inclined whose policies only recognize the two languages. In this situation isiXhosa finds itself to be and becomes an artificial minority language in these institutions. This is not to say that if maybe a BEE consortium was to invest in the isiXhosa language print media they were not going to be profit and sales oriented. However, they would be inclined in paying attention to the development of language rather language preservation. The reference to BEE business men in the paper should be understood in relation to the state abandonment and spectacular stagnation of isiXhosa print media and therefor the language of isiXhosa.
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    Assessing heritage preservation in post-apartheid urban landscapes: insights from the street names of Newtown
    (2019-10-28) Nyamwanza, Shylet
    The use of heritage-led urban development to promote sustainable urban regeneration through place making, preservation of urban identity, promoting tourism and nurturing creative economic development is growing (Ebbe, 2009). One of the goals of street naming in South Africa is heritage preservation (Ndletyana, 2012). Ever since street renaming unfolded in South Africa some places are still dealing with tensions and debates regarding the goals of renaming (Chauke, 2015). Whilst most studies have investigated name origins, and driving forces behind street renaming, what is missing is an academic account of the citizens’ narratives and interpretations behind these names. This study assessed how people interpret street names in Newtown, Johannesburg through face to face interviews, archival research as well as observations. The aim was to assess people’s urban memory and investigate whether they share the same perceptions with the government of preserving heritage through street names. The study revealed that street renaming coupled with selective criteria for preserving heritage and limited awareness programs may not be the best way to preserve heritage. According to the respondents’ concerns, the way the renaming was conducted, influenced its insignificant contribution to heritage preservation, specifically intangible heritage. Furthermore, channelling resources to street renaming frustrates citizens when a country has other challenges like high unemployment rates, inadequate housing and high poverty levels. The study suggested several recommendations to enhance heritage preservation through street naming.
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    The degradation of skill?: understanding the acquisition, development and maintenance of 'skills' in the context of South African capitalism
    (2018) Tshabalala, Themba
    This research project has attempted to understand and articulate the relationship between ‘capitalist deskilling’ and the post-apartheid discourse of skills development. It has engaged the contradiction that seems to exist in the current ‘skills’ discourse, using a labour process approach. Put briefly, if all capitalist societies inevitably degrade skilled-labour for the purpose of increasing surplus-value, why is South Africa, as a capitalist society, constantly lamenting the lack of skills? What does it mean for management to complain about not having skills, if having them may mean fewer profits? Why, for the past three decades to date have there been concerted efforts, from government, industry and education to produce skilled-labour if skilled-labour has the potential of demanding higher wages? Using the ideas of Braverman (1974) on the capitalist labour process and its effects on skilled-labour as an entering-wedge, the findings from this project have articulated the state of ‘skills’ in democratic South Africa. Chisholm (1983) has argued that most of the discourse (and ensuing practise) that has arisen from the drive to revive skilled labour in South Africa was characterised by what she refers to as ‘technicist’ interpretations to explaining and dealing with the skills-impasse. These (in our generation) are typically initiatives to improve the education system for the training of skilled labour and create synergy between society, education, industry and government. These are ‘technicist’ because they focus on the ‘technical’ aspects of the skills impasse. They emphasize that the problem of skills is simply a technical discrepancy, that if pedagogy, transition-into-the-workplace strategies, labour and educational policies around skills are improved, this will lead to the eradication of the problem with all its ramifications. These approaches do not consider what the ideological and social dimensions of the skills-impasse may be and hence this predicament may plague South African society for a long time to come. Choosing skilled labour from the apparel sector as a case, this project has sought to provide a socio-ideological approach towards articulating the state of skills in South Africa. I argue that the discourse of ‘skills’ is a governmental strategy used by the South African capitalist state to rationalize the risks of free-market capitalism, to further segment the working classes and to transfer the responsibility of a lack of adequate social protection to the masses. The framework for this project is qualitative; the strategy is a case study with ‘ethnographies of work’ of respondents from the Johannesburg apparel sector. Open-ended interviews were used to collect data and discourse analysis was used to argue that the ‘skills-debate’ is a discourse in and of itself.
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    Politics, professionalism and performance management: a history of teacher evaluation in South Africa
    (2018) Pillay, Devi
    Why has South Africa failed to institute a teacher evaluation system that produces meaningful results? I aim to contribute to an understanding of why and how various South African post-1994 teacher evaluation policies have failed to become institutionalised and have failed to ensure either robust teacher accountability or professional development. In this dissertation, I examine the history of teacher evaluation in South Africa, in order to understand the evolution of these policies and systems over time. After discussing the legacy of apartheid-era evaluation, I assess three post-1994 policy phases: the 1998 Developmental Appraisal System (DAS), the 2001 Whole School Evaluation (WSE) policies and the 2003 Integrated Quality Management System (IQMS). This historical approach allows me to analyse the successes and failures of these policies in depth and context. Each of these policies has been shaped by, has tried to respond to, and has ultimately failed to confront the challenges of the past. They must also be understood to be a part of a continuous policymaking process, each one building upon and responding to the last. This dissertation contributes to an understanding of why these evaluation policies, despite massive investments of time, energy and resources, and complex and tough negotiations, have repeatedly failed. I argue that a flawed policy process consistently reiterates the same tensions and false assumptions in each new policy, and does not address these fundamental weaknesses. These appraisal policies reflect negotiations and contestations between teacher unions and the state, while the policies themselves and their outcomes further complicate those union-state relationships. The tensions and contradictions within these policies are the product of a policymaking process that tries to cater to mutually exclusive interests. The history of these institutions – teacher unions, the state, collective bargaining bodies – and the relationships between them must be understood in order to grapple with the policymaking environment fully. Further, even as these policies have been renegotiated and redeveloped, they have all failed to engage with the actual realities of teachers and classrooms in the majority of schools in South Africa. The legacy of apartheid education is still manifest in the abilities, attitudes and politics of teachers, and policymakers on all sides of the process have consistently failed to confront that history and propose real strategies for change.
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    Confronting Schuster race-to-face: post-apartheid blackface in Mama Jack
    (2017) Kgongoane, Obakeng Omolem
    In blackface colonial history, “amusing” white blackface performances that depicted black people as the “natural born fool” were popular with white audiences during a time when whites perceived their racial superiority to be threatened. In Post-1994 South Africa, white supremacy is no longer an uncontested “fact”. As a result, white identities that are premised on “old” legislated notions of racial superiority are made insecure by perceived threats posed against whiteness. The previously disenfranchised and excluded black is now the central focus of South African power and politics and the loss of white centrality creates the “victim” perception that all post-apartheid societal pressures and changes are put on, and against whites. Their power has been “confiscated” and thereby no longer unique to white identity. Blackface is utilised by Leon Schuster in the post-apartheid film, Mama Jack (2005) to reproduce old ideologies of whiteness that remind viewers of its presence, privilege and power. As in the colonial past, it is through the principle white character Jack Theron and his mobilisation of blackface that white supremacy remains intact throughout the film.
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    Striving towards ‘perfection’?: investigating the consumption of self-help media texts by black South Africans in post-apartheid
    (2016) Rens, Simphiwe Emmanuel
    This research project studies the consumption of ‘self-help’ media texts with respect to black South African audiences. The core objective of this project is to contribute to expanding debates on race, class, identity, and media consumption. Based on in-depth interviews with 10 avid self-help consumers, the paper develops an argument for the role of self-management in race and other social identities. The deployment of the qualitative methodology of a thematic discourse analysis of over seven hours of interview transcripts assists this paper in providing an account of where, when and how self-help media manifests in the lives of the chosen participants. The paper finds that participants are motivated to consume self-help media texts by a need to ‘know’ and ‘understand’ themselves and others in order for these participants to acquire what they express to be an atmosphere of inter-relational harmony. A growth of media texts forming part of a genre related to the practice of therapy in South Africa is owed to what I argue as a deep-rooted culture of ‘reconciliation’ and a preoccupation with emotions which stems from a particularly murky socio-political past still in a constant state of reparation (prevalent in discourses about reconciliation and forgiveness) in the democratic dispensation. As a key inspiration, the once-off yet pertinent process of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of South Africa has noticeably inspired a genre which supplies its audience with an array of self-help, therapy-inspired media texts thriving on the practice of public confession and testimony (key principles of the TRC). This has paved the way for a culture of ‘treatment’ and ‘remedy’ becoming what this paper refers to as a ‘public affair’. Active participants on these self-help, often therapeutic, media texts on mass media platforms regularly do so at the expense of exposing deeply personal issues to ‘experts’ entrusted to assist with ‘healing’ what are deemed to be problem areas in people’s lives. Referred to by some of the interviewees as ‘brave hearts’, these participants (‘public confessors’) hold a complex position in the minds of the interviewed individuals who, ironically, express admiration and respect to the individuals who publicly testify and confess as they are a valued reference of ‘learning’ but at the same time, an expression of disappointment and shame is bestowed upon these ‘public confessors’ for allowing their argued exploitation by the media. Amidst all this, it is apparent that consumption of self-help media texts have particularly intricate influences on the patterns of self-identity as constructed by the participants of this research project.