4. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - Faculties submissions

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    Assessing how an alternative waste management system may facilitate subaltern and environmental justice: a thematic analysis of a zero waste pilot case study in South Africa
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Van Biljon (née Swart), Johanna Yvonne (Jani)
    Waste is socio-political – a symbol of our economic and consumerist society. Since the Industrial Revolution, our manufacturing processes and materialist lifestyles produced more hazardous and nondegradable externalities than we were prepared to deal with. With environmental and consumer pressure building, we are at a crossroads between continuing with business-as-usual and justly transitioning over to a systemically different, zero waste society where the focus on waste management shifts to waste prevention so that, like Karl Marx, it challenges and eventually changes production processes, ownership, consumption, and ultimately, our connection with the natural environment and each other. South Africa’s waste landscape is characterised by two things: its reliance on landfills and the thousands of informal waste pickers reclaiming the value of discarded goods. So, what could a zero waste system that is just toward the environment and the subaltern look like in South Africa? In exploring this question, I considered the work of waste pickers, as well as the case of an urban composting initiative for an inner-city market supporting the zero waste philosophy. Synthesising these, I imagine a gradual, deep bottom-up transformation in attitude, behaviour and eventually infrastructure with regard to our relationship with the environment, ownership and use, as well as the revaluation of the material and therefore waste ‘management’. The role and insights of waste pickers and local, informal economies will be crucial and influential. Though South African waste pickers do not yet participate in the organic waste stream on a noticeable scale, the prioritisation of composting by the Warwick Zero Waste project and the National Waste Management Strategy sees the recovery and local, low-tech, low-cost composting of organic waste as a vital starting point in establishing a more regenerative food and waste system that will build solid
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    Exploring opportunities and challenges on the consumption of colour cosmetics and make-up products by black women in South Africa
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2021) Mashaba, Constance; Mogotsi, Keratiloe
    Diversity, inclusivity, and empowerment are driving today’s fast-changing beauty attitudes, transforming expectations of looks and dismantling age-old patriarchal beauty standards in the process. Even though make-up is perceived as a means of self-expression, this study considers why many black women do not use make-up and colour cosmetics regularly. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore opportunities and challenges on the consumption of colour cosmetics and make-up products by black women in South Africa. The study sought to examine the influence of cultural beliefs, personality traits and social class on the consumption of colour cosmetics and make-up products by black South African women. The theory of buyer behaviour and the purchasing decision model were employed as the lens for the study. A mixed-method study was used for this research where a survey of 316 non-users or occasional users of colour cosmetics and make-up products was quantitatively carried out and qualitative interviews, designed to understand the consumption of colour cosmetics and make-up products, were conducted with 14 purposefully selected women in Gauteng Province, South Africa. The research findings supported one hypothesis, personality traits, as a significant positive influence and two hypotheses, cultural beliefs and social class, as negative influences on the consumption of colour cosmetics and make-up products by black South African women. The study contributes to the existing literature on the consumption of make-up products by black women in South Africa and to an understanding of the importance of inclusivity when cosmetics companies develop products. Based on the research results, recommendations for possible strategies that may be adopted by marketing managers in the colour cosmetics and make-up sector are provided. It is also recommended that future studies consider expanding the research to women of colour in general as they tend to use the same shades of colour cosmetics and make-up products and might have the same challenges or opportunities. Finally, future research to investigate other factors, such as disposable income of black women in South Africa, which could influence the consumption of colour cosmetics and make-up products, is recommended