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

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    The political geography of hemp Cannabis in South Africa: A development critique
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-06) Moore, Wendell; Mnwana, Sonwabile; Wafer, Alex
    The 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.
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    Unpaid reproductive labour and decent work in the South African labour market
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2022) Mackett, Odile; Pillay, Pundy
    Since the 1970s, women’s increased labour force participation has caught the attention of scholars, governments, labour unions and organisations such as the International Labour Organisation (ILO). The increase in female labour force participation has accompanied the globalisation and liberalisation of product and labour markets around the world. As a result, the ILO developed the ‘decent work agenda’ (DWA) to set a standard by which to measure the labour market vulnerability of workers. The DWA is an aspirational statement about the sort of work that ought to define the lives of all who work and who want to work. Unpaid reproductive labour, which is performed outside of the productive labour market and predominantly by women, has proven to be a major constraint for women’s advancement in paid work. Furthermore, despite gender equality in the workplace being listed as one of the main objectives of the DWA, in instances where unpaid labour has not intersected with the productive labour market, it has largely been ignored. This study empirically investigated whether the ILO’s DWA is conceptualised in a way that reflects a commitment to real gender equality in the labour market by demonstrating a link between work performed unpaid in service of the household and the quality or ‘decency’ of wage work. Using Labour Force Survey and Time-Use Survey data, theresults showed that the more time an employed individual spent on unpaid reproductive labour, the worse the quality of their paid job. However, this relationship was only significant for women and only during a period when the government undertook a contractionary fiscal approach. The findings of this study demonstrate important links between the household and the public sector and the extent to which women, through their household labour, keep the economy running when government and business are unable to do so
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    An Essay on the Welfare and Growth Implication of the Energy Mix in the South African Economy
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023) Sesele, Masedi; Kutela, Gelo
    This study investigated the welfare and growth implications of introducing renewable energy in South Africa’s energy mix. The investigation is divided into three chapters, providing a holistic analysis of climate change mitigation on developmental goals in South Africa. The first chapter determines the impact of the usage of non-renewable energy sources on selected sectors’ economic output in South Africa. The second chapter determines the pass-through effect and the response of consumer prices to renewable energy share increases in South Africa while using the exchange rate as a threshold. The third chapter determines through a natural experiment the impact of renewable energy policies such as the White Paper on the Energy Policy of the Republic of South Africa (1998), the White Paper on Renewable Energy Policy (2003) and the Integrated Resource Plan (2010) on South Africa’s economic growth by comparing the gross domestic product (GDP) growth path before and after the introduction of these policies. Results from the second chapter showed that coal was the least contributing factor to production for most sectors, showing that excessive coal usage may hinder economic output within the country. Petroleum has a positive and significant effect on the transport and agriculture sectors but has less of an effect on the other sectors. Electricity is a major contributing factor to production in some sectors, except for the industry sector, which may be adversely affected by the increasing electricity costs and constant load shedding in the country. Results from the third chapter showed that at an exchange rate threshold value of 7.7 R/$, the share of renewable energy pass-through to consumer prices is statistically significant below and above the threshold exchange rate value. When the exchange rate is above the threshold value, the pass- through effect is negative, indicating that an increase in the share of clean energy will decrease consumer prices. These results are largely attributed to the cost of renewable energy, which has been declining significantly in periods where the exchange rate was above the threshold value and, as a result, it had a negative pass-through effect on consumer prices. Results from the fourth chapter showed that each of the three green energy policies has a positive impact on the GDP, which shows that implementing renewable energy policies in South Africa has not only resulted in generating clean, renewable energy but also fosters economic growth within the country. Using a natural experiment, the study constructed a synthetic GDP growth path that vi would have been in place had there been no renewable energy intervention and compared it with the current GDP growth path post the intervention of renewable energy policy to identify the causal positive impact of green energy on economic growth. This thesis’ results encourage policymakers to further implement and improve renewable energy policies as the share of clean energy within South Africa’s energy mix not only mitigates climate change by decreasing greenhouse gas emissions but also positively affects economic growth by creating a clean ecosystem, job creation, increasing innovation and capital formation and overall improving total factor productivity in South Africa and the standard of living of ordinary South Africans
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    The measurement of decent work in South Africa: a new attempt at studying quality of work
    (2020-06) Mackett, Odile
    The quality of work is central to the growing inequalities in Africa and the world. Central to concerns about the decline in ‘labour share’ is the notion of decent work. In 1999, the International Labour Organisation coined the term ‘decent work’. The purpose of the Decent Work Agenda was not only to establish a definition of good work which can be used as a yardstick for workers, but also to create unity among workers, governments, and employers. Since the development of the term, numerous studies have been undertaken on the quantifiable aspects of the decent work framework, however, almost each study undertaken on the topic has measured different aspects of decent work or limited its enquiry to certain aspects of the definition of the term. As such, no study has measured decent work in a way which is reproducible without the resources which are required to undertake a survey. The purpose of this study is to construct a decent work index, using an iteration of the South African Labour Force Survey. This is useful firstly to identify measures which currently exist in secondary data and it is secondly beneficial in identifying shortcomings in relation to the use of the Labour Force Survey to measure decent work. Using sub-major (2-digit) occupation groups as units of analysis, the study found that there is an expected pattern around how occupations measure in relation to their degree of ‘decency’, meaning that higher paid professionals tend to have more decent occupations compared to low-skilled workers in elementary occupations. However, the higher up the occupational ladder the occupation is, the lower they score in terms of certain indicators, such as decent working time, and balancing work, family, and personal life. Furthermore, the study finds that occupation groups often score differently when the indicators which make up the decent work index are viewed individually rather than as a composite index. These findings imply that operationalising the idea and practice of decent work to understand and address inequality is no easy matter, but that democratising work to highlight the needs and preferences of workers could be one step in the right direction. At the minimum, it requires some engagement with different aspects of decent work in relation to different occupations. Analytically, a more nuanced conceptualisation of decent work is preferable to simple wage-based approaches often utilised by organisations representing the interests of workers.