Cape Flats Research Articles

Prevalence and characteristics of erectile dysfunction in black and mixed race primary care populations of the Cape Flats and Helderberg Basin area of the Western Cape, South Africa

There is a growing awareness amongst primary care workers that male erectile dysfunction (ED) may be important in Black and Mixed Race South African populations. Both groups have a high incidence of hypertension. heart disease, diabetes mellitus and mental diseases and many of these diseases are associated with ED either directly or as a consequence of their treatment. The effect of ED on the patient is frequently not only embarrassing but also debilitating as far as mental health is concerned. The development of treatment guidelines and new modes of treatment, e.g. safe and effective drugs such as sildenafil intra-cavernous and intra-urethral alprostadil and other methods of treatment have become commonplace in the management of ED, offering new hope to a large percentage of affected men.

From Manenberg to Soweto: race and coloured identity in the black consciousness poetry of James Matthews

The Black Consciousness poetry of James Matthews, internationally recognised Coloured writer from the Cape Flats, reflects the growing popularisation amongst politicised Coloured people during the 1970s of the idea that racial distinctions in general, and Coloured identity in particular, had historically been used by the white supremacist establishment to divide and rule the black majority. This insight, by no means novel, provided the main thrust to the popular rejection of Coloured identity in the anti-apartheid movement of the 1980s. Coloured rejectionism had, however, originated within a small section of the Coloured intelligentsia, in particular amongst those active within the Non- European Unity Movement (NEUM) in the early 1960s (Adhikari 2002: 186-87, 213-14, 243-48) and grew into a significant movement by the time it peakedat the end of the 1980s. Though confined to a politicised minority within the Coloured community itself, and observed mainly in public discourse or for pragmatic reasons, the disavowal of Coloured identity had by the early 1980s nevertheless become a politically correct orthodoxy within the anti-apartheid movement, especially in the Western Cape. In response to the overt racism of apartheid, the democratic movement embraced non-racism as a cornerstone of its philosophy and any recognition of Coloured identity was condemned as a concession to apartheid thinking. This tendency was, however, reversed during the four-year transition to democratic rule as radical changes to the political landscape in the first half of the 1990s once again made the espousal of Coloured identity acceptable in left-wing and “progressive” circles (Adhikari 2000: 349; 2002: 23-24, 281-87).

Between black and white: rethinking coloured identity

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1The photographs reproduced in this article are all from Chris Ledochowski's, Cape Flats Details: Life and Culture in the Townships of Cape Town (Pretoria: SAHO and University of South Africa Press, 2003). 2It is important to note that District Six has come to symbolise the excesses and brutalities of the apartheid state and in particular the Group Areas Act. But the impact on other areas such as Mowbray and Claremont should not be underestimated. 3What is remarkable about Diepen's edited collection, The National Question in South Africa, is that all the major ANC and Communist Party intellectuals succumbed to articulating the national problems in the very racial categories that they were seeking to overcome. For example, a cursory reading of the chapter titles is symbolic of this phenomenon. See especially, Essop Pahad, ‘South African Indians as a national minority in the national question’ (Diepen 1988 Diepen Maria Van (ed). 1988 The National Question in South Africa, London: Zed Books [Google Scholar]).

Modelling multiple mineral precipitation in anaerobic digester liquor

Mineral precipitation problems have been experienced with the conveyance and treatment of anaerobically digested primary and waste activated sludge blends. This paper describes an experimental investigation into mineral precipitation in anaerobic digester liquor (ADL) from the Cape Flats (CF) Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) (Cape Town, South Africa), and application of the three-phase (aqueous/solid/gas) physical and chemical processes kinetic model developed by Musvoto et al. (Water Res. 34 (2000) 1857; Water Res. 34 (2000) 1868; Water SA 26(4) (2000) 417) to the experimental data. From the experimental investigation and theoretical modelling, it is concluded inter alia that: (i) there is a close correlation between experimental measured and theoretically predicted data, (ii) the dominating mineral that precipitates is struvite, with small amounts of amorphous calcium phosphate and negligible newberyite, calcite and magnesite, (iii) the precipitation of struvite is governed by the increase in pH when CO 2 is lost from the ADL, (iv) the ADL is initially undersaturated with respect to struvite, but becomes supersaturated at pH>7.3–7.7, (v) the rate and mass of struvite precipitation are controlled by the rate of pH increase and the initial Mg concentration and (vi) the three-phase kinetic model is able to simulate accurately the time dependent precipitation data for multiple minerals competing for the same species and allows determination of specific precipitation rates for a number of minerals simultaneously in an integrated manner from a single batch test. Some operational strategies to minimise struvite precipitation are proposed.

Making use of everyday knowledge in the science classroom

Constructivist approaches to learning commend programme designs that build on learners' experience, interests and prior knowledge. Socio-cultural knowledge arises not only from children's ethnic backgrounds but also from socio-economic conditions, their environment and the personal circumstances of their lives. These circumstances may influence the worldview and activities of learners to such an extent that they feel alienated from schooling. This alienation must be seen, at least in part, as a failure of curriculum and teaching. The purpose of the study was to see how teachers and learners from townships and informal settlements in the Cape Flats area of Cape Town introduced and used local knowledge in the science classroom and how teachers and learners made the shifts between formal science and everyday knowledge. The methodology used was interpretive and participatory, as teachers were participants in the study. The data were used to design lessons that made use of learners' interests and experiences. As in other studies, this research found that greater connectedness of school science with children's interests and experiences promoted deeper engagement for the children with each other and the content. However, the central questions of the study went beyond this aspect to explore the question: What constitutes everyday knowledge for learners from the townships and informal settlements of the Cape Flats and how can this be incorporated into the science curriculum? While further research is required to gain deeper insight into learners' interests, this first phase shows that building learners' interests into the science curriculum is fruitful. It also suggests that empowering teachers to design relevant curricula for specific communities requires more attention than it has been given in the past.

RE-CONCEPTUALISING ORGANISED CRIME

Extracted from text ... This commentary aims to broaden the current approach to understanding organised crime. The orthodox method has been to conceptu-alise organised crime as a rather specific and isolated criminal entity. This mindset encour-ages certain assumptions and policy recom-mendations that are problematic. To overcome these shortfalls, this commentary suggests a broader perspective based on the notion of a 'criminal economy'. To illustrate how this perspective may lead to new views of organised crime, this commentary will sketch a case study based on research into the crimi-nal economy that exists on the Cape Flats. The two perspectives In South Africa, the study of organised crime has focused predominantly on exploring the internal characteristics of specific groups. Subsequently, descriptions of organised ..

Building on a Legacy of Social Justice Activism

Five in Six has begun what promises to be an unprecedented organizing campaign with the men nominated in these touching letters. Five in Six staff and volunteers have written letters congratulating each everyday hero and have visited those nominees who live in or near Cape Town. They traveled to shantytowns characterized by startling poverty to the townships of the Cape Flats that were the sites of pitched battles against soldiers and police of the white regime throughout the 1980s and to astonishingly wealthy and still predominantly white suburbs. There they encouraged men to organize neighborhood-based groups to whom they are in the process of providing training with the hope that each of these groups will engage in activism to create communities that guarantee safety and justice for women and girls. (excerpt)

Condoms are for spares, not the besties: Negotiating adolescent sexuality in post-apartheid Manenberg

Abstract This paper examines the construction of adolescent sexuality in Manenberg, a coloured township on the Cape Flats, during the South African transition from apartheid to democracy. I use ethnographic research methods to show how the historical, gendered meanings of adolescent sexuality were related to the construction of personhood and to the meanings of colouredness during the apartheid era. I argue that the local meanings of personhood and of sexuality in the township context, articulated with the political economy of race and the economic location of coloured women in the Western Cape. I then indicate how newer meanings of personhood and of sexuality emerged amongst adolescents in Manenberg in the late 1990s, in response to the national processes of political, social cultural and economic changes in the post-apartheid transition. Adolescents engage in contradictory sexual practices as they negotiate their way between the different sets of sexual norms that are associated with diverse notions of personhood. In doing so, they place themselves at risk of HIV/AIDS and other STD infections.

<i>And a Threefold Cord</i>: La Guma’s neglected masterpiece?

For a variety of reasons (including its publication history), Alex la Guma’s second novel And a Threefold Cord (1964) has long been neglected by readers and critics. This essay seeks to redress this situation by offering a reading of the novel that demonstrates its artistic integrity. Like A Walk in the Night, And a Threefold Cord avoids the overt propagandizing that arguably mars La Guma’s later work. The political “message” of the text is shown to emerge organically from events that unfold in its presented world. And a Threefold Cord is set in a Cape Flats shantytown, and it analyses the predicament of the shanty dwellers in terms of class inequality and economic exploitation, rather than in terms of racial discrimination. This ensures the novel’s continuing relevance in a South Africa where far too many people are inadequately housed in ever-growing “informal settlements”.

The Effects of the Observation of Dynamic and Static Assessment on Teachers’ Perceptions of Learners with Low Academic Results

The study contrasts and compares the effect of the observation of dynamic and static assessment approaches on teachers’ perceptions in the changing context of the South African Education system. The study was implemented in two schools on the Cape Flats, in Cape Town, South Africa. The Cape Flats is a historically disadvantaged area of Cape Town. From the results of this study, it can be concluded that the teachers in the experimental group, who observed a dynamic assessment, developed a more optimistic stance towards the learners than the teachers in the comparison group, who observed the static assessment battery. The teachers in the experimental group responded positively towards the mediational teaching style and process related aspects of the dynamic assessment procedure, whereas in the comparison group the teachers concerns about their learners were reinforced as a result of their low performance on the static test battery. The outcome of the study provides support for the use of dynamic assessment approaches within the South African context and reinforces the limitations and possible dangers of the use of static testing approaches with learners with low academic results.

Problematising the making of good and evil: Gangs and PAGAD

In late 1995 a movement emerged from the Cape Flats called the People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (PAGAD). It emerged from neighbourhood watch groups and although it claimed a diverse support base, it had an overwhelmingly Muslim face. Its stated aims were to remove gangsters and end the sale of drugs in communities on the Cape Flats. The dramatic killing of one of Cape Town's most notorious gang leaders by a group of PAGAD supporters immediately catapulted this organisation, and the presence of gangs, into the public space. This paper is an attempt to problematise representations, of both PAGAD and gangs, in the media and academic studies that had been done thus far. It seemed to me that the representations and studies were based on a set of politico-philosophical assumptions that led to the generic categorisations of these phenomena. From these categorisations derivative discourses offering programmatic solutions arise. The argument of this paper is that, firstly, the identity of the gangster in Cape Town — as derivative of poverty, as anti-social, as a result of the Group Areas Act — and that of PAGAD — as representative of a homogenous Islam and as the local incarnation of a global ‘Islamic threat’ — obscures their particularity and specificity. I argue that a richer grasp of their constitutive dynamics will be obtained if we explore their identities as non-static ‘processes’. These processes involve locating identity formation within the interface of globality and locality: the symbolic borderlands of contingency, which bring to the fore constitutive conditions of ambiguity and hybridity. The paper is an argument in three movements. Firstly, I explore the relationship between globalisation and culture and between the local and global, which informs my argument. The paper thereafter takes as its focus the ‘construction’ of the gangster in Cape Town. The third part of the paper problematises the ‘construction’ of PAGAD that has emerged.

The use of garden boreholes in Cape Town, South Africa: lessons learnt from Perth, Western Australia

The similarities in climate and geology offer water resource managers in Cape Town and Perth an opportunity to learn from each other’s experiences. While Cape Town relies mostly on surface water for supply, Perth uses 50% groundwater for its domestic and industrial use. It is proposed that certain aspects of Perth’s water supply infrastructure could successfully be transposed for the exploitation of Cape Towns’ groundwater resources. In Perth private boreholes is used to tap a shallow phreatic aquifer for garden irrigation. The Government of Western Australia encourages this practice. Cape Town has an opportunity to use water from the Cape Flats Aquifer in a similar manner. In this paper the use of the Cape Flats Aquifer for private garden irrigation is evaluated. By encouraging private landowners to develop private wells, large savings could be made in the amount of treated bulk water supply required by Cape Town. The Cape Flats Aquifer has the potential to meet a large part of the city’s garden irrigation requirements. Though the impact of pollution on water quality remains uncertain and a concern, the general quality of water in the aquifer is adequate for irrigation requirements. If the use of private garden boreholes is to be successful, education of the public will be vital. It is envisaged that the City of Cape Town and the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry in partnership with private, education and research institutions take the lead in such education and the development of appropriate legislation and guidelines.

Molecular Analysis Supports Specific Status for Bufo pardalis and Bufo pantherinus

In South Africa, the endemic toad species Bufo pardalis, more commonly known as the leopard toad, was initially described by Hewitt (1935) from Kei Road in the Eastern Cape, as a subspecies of Bufo regularis, Bufo regularis pardalis. It is distributed in two allopatric populations: one that occurs in the extreme southwestern Cape including the Cape Peninsula, Cape Flats and forelands to Hermanus, and the other, larger population that occurs in the Eastern Cape Province from Cape St. Francis to the Kwazulu-Natal border. The smaller Western Cape population is threatened because of the increase in recent years of land development for housing on the peninsula, with corresponding habitat losses (M. I. Cherry, pers. obs.). Hewitt made a distinction between the western and eastern forms based on morphological differences including more brilliant coloration, larger dorsal blotches and broader parotid glands in western specimens. In 1964, Poynton raised Bufo pardalis to specific status but made no comment on Hewitt's distinction between western and eastern forms. Comparisons of laryngeal morphology by Lambiris (1994) provided additional support for species recognition of the two populations. Poynton and Lamibiris (1998) elevated the Western Cape form to specific status as Bufo pantherinus: B. pantherinus was found to have distinctive coloration and markings, as well as unique laryngeal and parotid gland morphology. Differences in call structure have not yet been investigated, but it is intriguing to speculate that the differences in the laryngeal morphology may be reflected by differences in the call structure.

Long-term trends in the breeding populations of waterbirds (1951–1985) at a sewage treatment plant

Long-term (1951–1985) data on the breeding waterbird populations and habitat modifications at Cape Flats sewage treatment works (Strandfontein) and Rondevlei Bird Sanctuary (Rondevlei) were assessed to establish the main factors affecting the breeding species richness and nest abundance. Fifty-two 'water-associated' breeding species were recorded in the Zeekoe River catchment waterbodies, 46 (88.5%) at Strandfontein, 38 (73.1%) at Rondevlei Bird Sanctuary (Rondevlei), 33 (63.5%) at Zeekoevlei and ten (19.2%) at Princess Vlei. Thirteen (25.5%) of the species were unique to Strandfontein and five (9.8%) to Rondevlei. Sorenson's similarity indices indicated high similarity (Cs = 0.81) in species richness and low similarity in nest abundance pattern (CN = 0.10) for the paired sites Strandfontein-Rondevlei. The lowest breeding species richness (11 species) was in winter (June) and the peak (42 species) was in spring (October). Twenty-four species joined the breeding population of Strandfontein during 1959–1976 (during which time pond water surface area increased 2372%). The mean breeding species richness increased significantly (χ 2 2 = 14.42, P <0.001) at Strandfontein during three distinctive periods: 1951–1958 (pre-construction), 1959–1976 (construction) and 1977–1985 (stabilization). At Rondevlei there were no significant differences in breeding species richness during the same periods. However, there were significant differences in the nest abundance pattern between these grouped years, both at Strandfontein (χ 2 2 = 1472.2, P <0.001) and at Rondevlei (χ 2 2 = 60.28, P <0.001). It is suggested that the same pool of species use the heterogeneous habitats at all the sites in the catchment according to their availability. The remarkable increase in species richness and nest abundance at Strandfontein after the late 1970s is attributed to higher habitat structural complexity, broad habitat types, stabilization and maturation of pond water and the subsequent increase in food diversity and availability. The decrease in Rondevlei nesting populations after the 1960s is probably related to fluctuations in water levels, cover of mudbanks with vegetation and high density of alien fish. A multipurpose management concept for conservation is proposed for the Zeekoe River catchment area. Strandfontein provides the greatest diversity of aquatic habitats not available elsewhere in the catchment (habitats for rare breeders such as Avocet, Black-winged Stilt, Red-billed Teal and some plovers) Rondevlei has a complementary habitat spectrum (suitable for Great Crested Grebe, Podiceps cristatus, Little Bittern, Ixobrychus minutus, and reedbed species). Zeekoevlei provides a large area of reedbed habitat for colonial breeding species (African Spoonbill and herons) and Princess Vlei is suggested for attracting Laridae.

Midfielder's Moment: Coloured Literature and Culture in Contemporary South Africa

Introduction: Occupying the Interstices The Problematic of the Middle The Peculiar and Demanding Condition of the South African Hybrid Writing Colouredness The Politics and Culture of Coloured Sport Writing in a Twilight Zone: Richard Rive, the Making of a Coloured Artist and Intellectual The Formation of a Coloured Thinker The Radical Intellectual as Fighter A Generation of Coloured Protest Writers Emerges Claiming The District as Home Who Is Coloured? The Poetics of Partial Affiliation: Arthur Nortje and the Pain of Origin And I Hybrid, After Arthur Bastardized Sexuality Roots Exile and Denial Searching for Coloredness: Reading the Poetry of Jennifer Davids A Different Kind of South African Poet Where Poetic Value and Politics Are Both Presumed Missing The Impossibility of Disguise Theatre of Dreams: Mimicry and Difference in Cape Flats Township Football Its a Cape Flats Thing, Try to Understand Scoring from the Cultural Rebound Whats in a Metropolitan Name? The Nation in White: Cricket in a Postapartheid South Africa A Game of High and Difficult Technique Goodbye Dolly, Hello Isolation The Triumph of White Culture and Capital Hes Got Them in a Spin McCarthyism, Township Style Hanover Park Hero: But Not Everyone Knows What That Means Forwards Know How to Have Fun

Information Literacy Education in Disadvantaged Schools: A Case Study of Project Work at a Primary School in South Africa

This article reports on an ethnographic field study of project work in a grade 7 class in a disadvantaged primary school on the Cape Flats, Cape Town, South Africa. The purpose was to explore the potential use of project work (encouraged by the new South African school curriculum with its emphasis on continuous formative assessment) for information literacy education. The study found crucial gaps between official policy and classroom practice. Teachers' conceptions of teaching and learning were found to be the key to effective project work-and, therefore, to its value for information literacy programs.

A Protocol for Plant Conservation by Translocation in Threatened Lowland Fynbos

Abstract: A form of lowland, sandplain Fynbos restricted to the Cape Flats near the city of Cape Town is the South African vegetation type most threatened by urban and agricultural development. Cape Flats Fynbos remnants, totaling 4.8 km2, contain 14 plant species endemic to the Cape Flats scattered through four protected areas and 11 unprotected vegetation fragments on public land. Despite their small size and management problems, the remaining protected areas are under pressure from the public and developers to function as “lifeboats,” or places of safety, for attractive indigenous plant species from the unprotected areas destined for development because the popular perception is that any indigenous plant population threatened by habitat destruction should be saved by being transplanted into a protected area. The urgency for dealing with the issue of plant rescue in the Cape Town metropolitan area was the catalyst for a workshop held at the University of Cape Town in 1998 to develop protocols for Fynbos plant species translocations. We report on points raised by managers and academics at the workshop, including the selection of target taxa, individuals, and establishment sites, and methods for introduction, and present case histories illustrating possible solutions to the problems encountered.

Discourses of violence: Coping with violence on the cape flats

(1999). Discourses of violence: Coping with violence on the cape flats. Social Dynamics: Vol. 25, No. 2, pp. 75-97.

Fifty ways to say ‘I do’: tracing the origins of unstressed do in Cape Flats English, South Africa

Hierdie artikel handel oor die geskiedenis van die onbeklemtoonde do in Suid-Afrikaanse Engels met spesiale venvysing na hedendaagse gebruik op die Kaapse Vlakte. Die konstruksie is veral algemeen ...

Notions of coloured identities in Cape Flats theatre: a look at Taliep Petersen's District Six—The Musical

(1998). Notions of coloured identities in Cape Flats theatre: a look at Taliep Petersen's District Six—The Musical. South African Theatre Journal: Vol. 12, No. 1-2, pp. 91-107.