School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies (ETDs)
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Item The political geography of hemp Cannabis in South Africa: A development critique(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-06) Moore, Wendell; Mnwana, Sonwabile; Wafer, AlexThe discourse on Cannabis that is generally understood in the public domain, revolves mostly around its recreational uses and more recently its medicinal potential. The plants industrial usages and overall worth to society are often framed in relation to these more popular parts of Cannabis. The study focuses its attention on hemp Cannabis to tell a different story but acknowledges that all the uses of Cannabis are interlinked. Using an extensive desktop analysis, Cannabis webinars and conferences, as well as autoethnography, the thesis shows that there is in fact more to the plant than what first meets the eye. It especially illuminates two important dimensions of Cannabis that are often overlooked when discussing the plant. Firstly, by its nature Cannabis is political, which is deeply embedded in how the plant is understood in the geographic diaspora of the Global South. Secondly, it shows that any serious social scientific analysis of contemporary Cannabis development must think through how the ways of knowing, produced during prohibition, will become a part of the plant’s future. This thesis therefore argues for an appraisal and maintenance of the historical resistances of Cannabis used prior to legalization, if its development in the legal era is to be successful. To be sure, such innovative and alternative models of practical development should become a standard part of the geographies of all work economies. Moreover, making use of these forms of resistance is not about Cannabis gaining the approval from ‘the market’. In fact, the skills learnt while labouring for Cannabis, when it was prohibited, has become such a permanent feature of its development that liberal democratic consent is not an option. Therefore, the thesis proposes that Cannabis development delink from the prohibition narratives inscribed onto the plant. It continues by showing that the current medicalisation of Cannabis only updates gatekeeping models. Hence, an agrarian alternative was suggested that consolidates all the uses of Cannabis without undermining any one part of the plant. Lastly, the thesis documents the possibilities of gaining access into the industry for black people, the poor working class and women. What it argues is that ownership, just employment and leadership of Cannabis industries in South Africa must be repurposed so that ordinary people can also play a part in making sure the plants contemporary development is truly sustainable. Taken together, this is the critique of development that the political geography of hemp Cannabis in South Africa reveals.Item Traditional Custodians, Sacred Heritage Sites and Tourism Development: A Case Study ofthe Phiphidi Falls in the Limpopo Province of South Africa(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-09) Mabehle, Nhlaluko; Russell, ThembiweThe way in which intangible heritage should be preserved is a debatable subject, and the question about who should have authority over what happens at sites associated with spiritual values is often a contentious issue. While local communities frequently hold traditional custodianship of the sites, they usually do not have any legal custody. When tourism developments are suggested in impoverished rural communities, whose basic rights could be met by allowing tourism developments to happen, conflicts frequently arise. Traditional custodians tend to want to keep their places of worship sacred while tourism developers would rather promote such sites as touristic products and potential source of income for the community. Fractions can occur within the communities as well. This project investigated community attitudes towards cultural heritage in Limpopo, using the case of Phiphidi Waterfalls, a site earmarked for tourism development, to analyse traditional management systems and to develop a framework for the effective management and preservation of sacred sites. Comparative studies were used to analyse traditional management systems in southern Africa. The main objective is to attain sustainable preservation of intangible heritage without any conflicts between traditional custodians and tourism authorities, and so this project contributes to the larger debate about who should have authority over sacred sites.Item Responsible mining and sustainability in Nigeria: the case of Bitumen(2020) Akinyosoye, Oluwole Olafusi; Wafer, AlexThe last few decades have been marked by a sense of urgency regarding the sustainable use of the earth’s natural resources. During this period, the mining and minerals industries have received particular attention in relation to their perceived destructive impact on the environment. Within this context, the discourse of responsible mining has relatively recently emerged as a possible route towards more sustainable mineral exploitation that could be the basis for sustainable development in the future. For some commentators the idea of responsible mining is an oxymoron: mineral exploitation is always environmentally too costly. For other commentators, effective management of mineral resources provides a realistic path to sustainable development for resource rich but economically poor nations. One of the key components of responsible mining is "good governance": i.e. the presence of a broadly legitimate and democratic form of governing society, which includes a balance of power in the administration of a country between the effective institutions of state and civil society. However, the past decades have suggested that there is an inherent crisis of poor governance in many developing countries, which has been identified as one of the drivers of change to initiate sustainable development. This research report offers an exploration of these two intersecting concepts of responsible mining and governance in Nigeria, in the context of the proposed economic diversification strategy through non-oil and solid minerals development. The study focusses on what might be termed the paradox of sustainable futures in Nigeria: with the proposed exploitation of bitumen reserves in a country that has a poor social and environmental reputation for oil mining. What are the prospects that bitumen could provide resources for sustainable growth in Nigeria? Despite relatively high rates of growth in the Nigerian economy in the past few years, the Nigerian economy has traditionally been overly dependent on oil and gas extraction, and the gradual decline over the past two decades has seen an overall decline in development in the country. As a result, the government has identified other resource potentials, in this context, to exploit the vast bitumen reserves in Nigeria. Whilst the idea to mine bitumen spawns the rhetoric of development in the area and huge revenues to the government for national development purposes, there is a need to explore the paradox of development from this form of mining. More importantly is the impending impact on the indigenous people, which is influenced by certain factors, especially the network of governance, to address the challenges of minerals development in Nigeria. In this context, this study is an attempt to explore the possibilities of and anxieties regarding sustainable futures in the context of the impending bitumen exploitation. The study involved 3 months of field research in Agbabu in Ondo State, Nigeria, one of the areas that will be most affected by the proposed bitumen mining. The area is largely rural, with traditional forms of land ownership and farming practices that are integral to the economic opportunities within the community. Thus, to obtain detailed knowledge of the dynamics of exploiting bitumen, this study applied a qualitative research design to conduct a case-study research on Agbabu in Ondo state, Nigeria. The review of relevant literature, focus group discussion, in-depth interviews, and key informant interviews were relevant tools that provided the data for the study. With these tools, the study gathered data from a range of respondents which included the local population, government officials and professionals who hold esteemed positions in this study concerning their experiences and opinions’ on the proposed bitumen project. The study found that despite the welcome idea of bitumen development, local mining communities still struggle with issues of being marginalised and excluded from decision-making processes in matters related to their indigenous space.