Post-apartheid South Africa Research Articles

‘Farming God’s Way’: Evangelical Cosmologies of Land and ‘Crisis’ in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Social conditions in post-apartheid South Africa have been widely seen as marked by persistent and often racialised inequalities. The country has also been viewed through the prism of crisis, in economic, social, ecological and political spheres. Such language of crisis is increasingly reflected today among religious actors that reconstitute religious publics in the post-apartheid dispensation. Focusing on the growing public presence of Pentecostal-Charismatic and Evangelical Christianity, this article analyses how cultivating food ‘God’s way’ interplays with discourses of crisis in South Africa. The study employs ethnographic observation and interviews of practitioners and instructors of the Farming God’s Way network, a parachurch organisation operating in promoting regenerative agricultural principles as authentic Christian practice. Biblically authorised land practices address Christians’ emotional attachments and personal histories of agricultural production, land use and ownership. The study argues for understanding such farming as encompassing a space of both mediation and contestation between hopes of restoring an ideal past based on a biblically based agrarian and ecological order and frustrations with attempts at transforming a morally degraded present. Addressing Farming God’s Way as an emotional project entangled in discourses of (non)belonging and questions of change reveals tensions around representations of race, class and gender in Charismatic Christians’ approach to biodiversity. Here, adherence to regenerative farming principles reveals practices through which Christian farmers attempt to remake themselves as moral citizens through ecological care. Rearticulations of the responsible steward, however, pinpoint the persistence of racialised tropes at the core of the religious public project of redeeming the present.

Multiphrenic Identities and Cultural Theory in Post-Apartheid Literary Adaptations: Reflections on Ramadan Suleiman’s Film Version of Njabulo Simakhale Ndebele’s Fools

In both apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa, literary texts have been important sites of cultural enquiry. They both historicise culture and allow new theoretical frames. However, they are also sites of fragmented, overpopulated, multisensorial memories and the difficulties of their articulation. This article focuses on Ramadan Suleiman’s, Fools, an adaptation of Njabulo Ndebele’s novel by the same title, as an important site for examining cultural theory occurring at the juncture of apartheid literature and post-apartheid literary criticism. We argue that while the film is a figurative cartographical sketch of the apartheid ‘world’ narrated in the novel, its protagonist functions as an avenue of ‘discharging’ specific ideas of identity crisis in the post-apartheid cultural world. It angles towards multiphrenia as a productive frame to theorise the protagonist’s jumbled identity, drawing from the existing critique of both the text and the film. We conclude that, through this overwhelmed identity, Fools offers a sui generis paradigm of new possibilities in post-apartheid cultural criticism that is usable in both literary and film criticism.

Navigating the Complexities: Land Reform in Post-Apartheid South Africa

In the nearly three decades since the advent of democracy in South Africa, land reform has remained a critical issue. The African National Congress (ANC) introduced Land Reform Policies (LRP) in 1994, aiming to address three core aspects: restitution, reform, and redistribution. In 2017, the ANC signalled its intent to begin land distribution without compensation following the amendment of Section 25 of the South African constitution. However, progress has been slow, with only 9% of farmland transferred to date. Corruption and other factors have hindered effective land distribution. The ANC’s historical success in land dispossession between 1994 and 2004 contrasts with recent difficulties. Their focus on capital-intensive farming has limited alternative livelihood options for beneficiaries. Moving forward, addressing corruption and considering diverse approaches will be crucial to achieving equitable land distribution for Black South Africans. This paper sheds light on the complexities of land reform, emphasizing the need for a multifaceted approach that balances historical justice, economic viability, and social aspirations.

Too many rights? Women’s reproductive freedom in post-Apartheid South Africa

ABSTRACT: This article explores the contestations over the legislation and enactment of sexual and reproductive rights in South Africa. The rights to free, quality sexual and reproductive health and rights are inscribed in the Constitution (1996) and within copious legislation and policy documents, yet their realisations remains elusive for much of the population. Teenage pregnancy is a particular node for controversy and public disapprobation in present-day South Africa. Public anxieties and opposition to teenage pregnancy relates, in complex ways, to broader suspicions about moral atavism among young women, in particular. There is a sense that the democratic transition has dismantled established modes of social regulation, resulting in a rupture in the social fabric and in concomitant social damage. This article explores two elements of this idea. Firstly, that the legislation of democratic freedoms has licensed sexual promiscuity among young women. Secondly, that this sexual promiscuity is related to other forms of profligate consumption among the ‘born free’ generation – those born after the first democratic elections in 1994. Based on seven years of qualitative research in the Eastern Cape as part of a study on post-apartheid youth, this article contrasts claims about the social damage brought about by the empowerment of women in the post-apartheid era, with the experiential accounts of young men and women themselves, as well as their older caregivers.

The Continued Absence of the LGBTIQA+ Community in School History Textbooks in Post-Apartheid South Africa

School history textbooks in South Africa are essential teaching and learning materials for most history teachers and learners, because they are often the only materials used to engage with the past. These textbooks are also considered to contribute to the construction of an ideal citizenry, as well as fostering national identity, unity, and reconciliation (Bertram and Wassermann 2015; Bam, Ntsebeza and Zinn 2018). However, our concern is that while textbooks appear to be used to construct an ideal citizenry who is supposed to have reconciled and united into one national identity, there also appears to be a concerted effort to exclude, within both the written and visual texts of the textbooks, those South Africans who identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, Queer/Questioning, Asexual, and many other identities (LGBTIQA+). Through abyssal and post-abyssal epistemology as our theoretical frameworks, and critical discourse analysis as our tool of analysis we were able to investigate how four history textbooks across four grades within the Senior and Further Education and Training phase that we purposively and conveniently sampled continue to exclude LGBTIQA+ contributions and experiences within the knowledge base of the school history curriculum, despite the pivotal role some played during the struggle against apartheid. We have since concluded that the erasure of the LGBTIQA+ community amounts to another dehumanising act against this group of people that is epistemic, existential, and ontological in nature. We also argue that this act denies all history teachers and learners, irrespective of their sexual orientations, the opportunity to engage with diverse historical contributions and experiences of all South Africans.

Basic Analytical Assumptions of Empowering the Periphery

Against the background of the global crises and the urgency it created, the authors attempt to problematise the pathways to empowering the peripheries of the world – the victimised, excluded, humiliated and entangled. As assumptions relevant for the empowerment of the peripheries they discuss: the need to re-read one’s own history; “accurate reconnaissance” of the current local circumstances; understanding the “workings of the global neoliberal capitalism”; focusing on integrating, making use of new scientific insights, reinvigorating fundamental values and generating internal actors of change; establishing new transformative alliances of the peripheries. The assumptions are contextualized in relation to the process of transition taking place in post-apartheid South Africa and post-socialist Serbia.

Press and Politics: Contributions of Sol Plaatje to South African Journalism

The article looks into the journalism of Solomon Thekisho Plaatje (popularly known as Sol Plaatje) and his contributions to the early South African black press and politics. Sol Plaatje remains one of South Africa’s most important political and literary figures. He was a pioneer of black press in South Africa. He was a spokesman of his people and an opinion leader among them. He was the first Secretary of the South African Native National Congress (SANNC) which later became the African National Congress (ANC), the current ruling political party in South Africa. His services to war correspondents as secretary, typist or interpreter and ‘liaison officer’ (to war correspondent Vere Stent) laid the foundation for his careers in journalism and writing. Plaatje edited/published a number of Setswana/English newspapers such as Koranta ea Becoana ( Bechuana Gazette), Tsala ea Becoana ( Bechuana Friend) which later became Tsala ea Batho ( Friend of the People) and Our Heritage. He also wrote regularly for English language newspapers such as Star, Pretoria News, Cape Times, Cape Argus and Diamond Fields Advertiser. The study seeks to find out the interplay between Sol Plaatje’s journalism and politics and his contributions to South African journalism as a pioneer of the black press. The study adopts the historical research method. Data gathered for the study were qualitatively analysed. Sol Plaatje’s kind of journalism was developmental as it was geared towards defending his people and re-orientating them to better ideals while at the same time trying to build cohesion with the white populace. The study is a contribution to the reconstruction of media history in the post-apartheid South Africa.

The Representation of Black Queer Masculinities on YouTube in the Film Out of This World

This article is an explorative study of the documentary film Out of This World (2017), which captures the narratives and experiences of queer individuals in Johannesburg, South Africa, through a series of snapshots. Guided by activist and host Mykki Blanco, the film explores queer creative cultures in post-apartheid South Africa using YouTube as a platform. It exposes the lived realities of queer voices often silenced and marginalised, bringing visibility to stories of urban CBD and township queer experiences. The film navigates the experiences of the “born-free” generation within the queer community, as they grapple with continued marginalisation. Utilising social media, the film exemplifies self-fashioned queer visualities in post-apartheid South Africa, enabling visibility and belonging for some queer individuals. The film employs YouTube as a visual media to understand how black queer people forge spaces of visibility, countering historical oppression and erasure. The article serves to explore and discuss how black queer masculinities are represented on YouTube in the film Out of This World. The article will employ Grant Andrews’s concept of “mirror” and “mirroring,” utilising visual media to foster recognition and identity in the post-apartheid context. The project uses qualitative visual content analysis to unpack the complex social and cultural dynamics represented in these texts, and the analysis demonstrates how these visual texts are themselves sites of resistance and of imagining and claiming “liveable lives” that the transgressive vulnerabilities allow for.

Development And Service Delivery in Post-Apartheid South Africa: “Quality” Versus “Quantities” of the Pre and Post-Apartheid South Africa

This paper intends to determine the contestation between the quality and quantity of service delivery in comparison between pre-apartheid and post-democratic South Africa. There are relative arguments that persist that quality and better service was provided in South Africa during the apartheid government era as compared to the current democratic system era. Contrary to these arguments, post-apartheid South African politicians boast about the service they are providing at the best quality and having closed the segregated service delivery system that was provided and practiced by the apartheid regime. This paper is conceptual, and it uses a desktop methodology to argue and compare the two perspectives in an attempt to find a truthful answer to it. This paper concludes that within the midst of the contestation of such arguments, the current beneficiaries perpetuating such scale of comparison are ignorant of the different contexts of eras of development and challenges and opportunities within which the two regimes operate.

Peter J Lor: mentor and mentee unbounded

PurposeAn attribute common throughout Lor’s distinguished career has been a passion for learning and continuous improvement in an approach that sets high standards, both for himself and others. Taking on the informal mantle of both mentor and mentee, these contributions have blended with no clear boundaries or timelines.Design/methodology/approachLor has been active in the library and information sector (LIS) landscape since the 1960s. A stalwart of the library and information profession, the author is being honoured by International Federation of Library Associations and Institution (IFLA) with a prestigious festschrift in recognition of a librarian who has made a sustained contribution to the library and information profession over decades with significant impact on academia, scholarship, praxis, communities and individual librarians.FindingsLor is recognized as a lifelong mentee as evidenced by his unbounded forays into discovery driven by a natural curiosity that, in turn, shaped his approach to mentoring through teaching, instilling best practices in research methodology and significant contributions to international librarianship. Today this continues in a regular column for South African librarians, drawing from the international literature of books, libraries and information, his role as a key figure in the establishment of Library and Information Association of South Africa (LIASA) in the 1990s, as well as experience from close involvement in developing LIS policies for post-apartheid South Africa, drafting guidelines for national library legislation and serving as IFLA Secretary-General in The Hague.Originality/valueThis viewpoint has been an attempt to share reflections on one individual’s lifetime of influence without borders or timelines. Without doubt, Lor’s global mentorship reach remains unbounded in his approach to critical thinking and desire for continuous improvement for himself and others.

White Guilt: Antjie Krog’s Begging to Be Black and the Confessional Uncanny

Krog’s Begging to Be Black is an attempt to articulate whiteness in postapartheid South Africa. This article contends that Krog’s desire for blackness is modulated by her persistent “white guilt,” and therefore her memoir foreshadows a mode of writing, the confessional uncanny, whereby her claim to national belonging is expressed.

Energy poverty and mental distress in South Africa: Assessing linkages and potential pathways

Despite the increasing attention on energy poverty due to its health implications, the South African story is yet to be told, while pathways of influence have received little empirical investigation in the extant literature. This study examines how energy poverty affects mental distress in post-apartheid South Africa and explores gender and locational heterogeneities in outcomes as well as potential pathways. We use five years of longitudinal data extracted from the National Income Dynamics Survey (NIDS). We employ the Lewbel instrumental variable method to resolve endogeneity and apply causal mediation analysis to identify potential channels of effect. The findings suggest that energy poverty is associated with an increase in mental distress. This outcome is consistent across different estimation methods and conceptualisations of energy poverty. The deteriorating effect of energy poverty on mental distress is more pronounced among females and rural residents. We further establish that experiences of persistent cough and chest pains/tightness serve as potential pathways in the link between energy poverty and mental distress. We encourage the South African government to increase budgetary allocations to the free basic electricity policy and provide connection subsidies to poor households, which have the potential to alleviate energy poverty and reduce mental distress as a result.

Apartheid and mentoring: from silencing to re-centering previously marginalised voices in the chronicles of higher education mentoring

ABSTRACT The authors of this paper adopted a transformative framework in this article to examine how the legacy of apartheid continues to manifest within higher education in South Africa. In particular, the authors analyzed (a) how mainstream mentoring knowledge of ‘black’ and ‘marginalized’ people have influenced mentoring in post-apartheid South Africa; (b) varied ways in which mentoring initiatives and programs have been silenced and ignored previously marginalized voices through the application of apartheid mentoring knowledge, and (c) shared how the mentors/lecturers and students show and tell their stories about the demands of mentoring and the emphasis of contextual and responsive mentoring for the previously marginalized people in higher education in South Africa. The shortage of mentoring has been cited as a crucial reason for women’s lack of advancement in leadership. Implications for advancing transformation through mentoring in higher education in South Africa are also discussed.

Analysis of Funding and Access Challenges to Higher Education in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Analysis of Funding and Access Challenges to Higher Education in Post-Apartheid South Africa

An analysis of the effects of history in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission poetry

Scholars raise 2 salient questions regarding poetry in post-apartheid South Africa. One is whether new poetry emerged in the post-apartheid South Africa, and the other is whether poetry produced during and after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is capable of capturing the imagination of the reading public without resorting to the bigotry of Black versus White. Literature highlights the need for South African poets to move away from using historical facts as the basis for making literary representation. We acknowledge that the use of historical facts as the basis for literary representation of societies may be seen as insensitive to the victims of the injustices of the past practices in highly politically polarised communities. At the same time, we argue that historical narratives with positive ideological intent can heal wounds and unite a nation. To justify this position, we adopted a 2-fold perspective: firstly, we investigated the effects of using history as the basis for literary representation and, secondly, we examined the extent to which post-apartheid South African poets may use history as a necessary tool to enforce unity and a sense of forgiveness.

Confronting the cataracts of whiteness to see the invisible: reflections on the transmission and reception of the Bible in post-apartheid South Africa

The goal of this article is to draw on some of the latest insights in biblical studies on the challenges posed to the reflection, transmission, and reception of the Bible with relevance to a post-apartheid South African context. The author engages with prominent figures in the field of Biblical Studies and critical race theory such as David Horrell, in order to address the issue of whiteness and its impact on marginalisation. The aim is to foster a deeper understanding of the ways in which certain voices have been rendered invisible and to continue to question and challenge these dynamics. This paper delves into the interpretation of the Bible in Africa, using the perspectives of scholars such as Thomas Wartenberg in conjunction with the ideas of Charles W. Mills, W. Jennings, R. Ellison, and Steven Biko, as well as other notable figures, to criticallyreflect on the role of biblical scholarship in the process of restoring historically marginalised voices within the contextof past injustices.

South African Public Sector Post-Apartheid Economic Initiatives For Human Development: Why Were The Strategies Short-Lived?

This paper investigates the extent to which the national economic initiatives introduced in post-apartheid South Africa were successful, why they were removed and why they were unsustainable or indefensible. In order to address the research questions, this study used a qualitative design involving the views of government officials who participated in the formulation of national policies. A total of six officials for each strategy (RDP, GEAR, ASGISA, NGP, NDP, DDM) were sampled purposively, in order to generate rich information on the performance of each policy considered, and the decision to replace the policy. A semi-structured survey form was developed for this purpose. The study results show that none of the economic strategies were able to decisively change the trajectory of South Africa’s economic development. The key reasons are the removal of the economic strategies before they achieved the stated objectives potential; inability to adjust and refocus strategies continuously; a lack of implementation and monitoring capacity. The study contributes to the understanding of how South Africa’s economic development strategies performed and why they were removed. This informs future approaches to the development and management of economic strategies. The findings suggest that there must be sound and consistent public management to drive and coordinate implementation, in order for economic development initiatives to be effective.

Settler colonialism and therapeutic discourses on the past: a response to Burnett et al.’s ‘a politics of reminding’

ABSTRACT In ‘A politics of reminding: Khoisan resurgence and environmental justice in South Africa’s Sarah Baartman district’, Burnett et al. scrutinize the memory activism of the Gamtkwa Khoisan Council, which is part of the wider ‘Khoisan resurgence’ sweeping across post-apartheid South Africa. Although the authors missed important nuances, they also pointed out flaws in the way I used Niezen’s ‘therapeutic history’ [Niezen, R. (2009). The rediscovered self: Indigenous identity and cultural justice. McGill-Queen’s Press] in my work to account for why Khoisan activists turn to the past. I therefore not only respond to their criticism, but also revise aspects of my theoretical framework. Therapeutic history is not divorced from material concerns. Nor is it representative of all engagements with the past by indigenous people or simply the opposite of academic history. Instead, by drawing on my ethnographic fieldwork and theorizing alongside the Khoisan, I show how it captures emic discourses on the past that entangle notions of indigenous identity, healing, and history in order to resist settler colonialism and its oppressive etic histories. While the concept of therapeutic history has its limitations, it effectively highlights indigenous people’s agency in the face of settler colonialism in South Africa and elsewhere.

Inclusion, democracy, and philosophy of education: Nuraan Davids and Yusef Waghid's Democratic education as inclusion

Abstract For philosophers of education who hold on to the optimistic hope that democracy education can play a part in halting the decline of democracy, Davids and Waghid point the way towards its potential contribution when approached by making inclusion foundational to democratic education. Taking a poststructuralist approach as the best way to articulate an expanded conception of inclusion, this book makes the case that there is an urgent need for a reconsidered conception of democratic education that appropriately addresses race, ethnicity and gender. This review's critical appreciation of Davids and Waghids book explores their analysis of inclusion, noting its illuminating use of examples of exclusion in South African education which are also relevant to wider contexts beyond the specificities of apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa. In raising some questions about their arguments, I express reservations about the book's predominant focus on race, ethnicity and gender as markers of identity. This is at the expense of class and material exclusion—and hence of distributive justice as a dimension of democratic inclusion. The review concludes with a discussion of how philosophy of education itself might be democratically inclusive, in response to the authors' account of whiteness and their experiences of exclusion.

Grade 4 Rural Learners' Views and Learning Experiences That Address Social Justice in Postapartheid South Africa

The complexity and dynamic nature of rural contexts and schools present intricacies for teaching and learning practices, understanding the challenges learners experience, as well as the overall educational achievements within the South African context. We argue that learning is fundamentally a social phenomenon that occurs within communities, making it important to explore the strengths, diversity, as well as learning challenges presented by the rural context to learners given that they learn in rural schools and classrooms daily. The symbolic interactionism framework was used to understand emergent meanings in the process of interacting with primary school learners, and how learners made sense of their experiences of learning in rural schools. A qualitative phenomenological research methodology was espoused to unearth learners' experiences of the rural contextual conditions in relation to learning. Photo-elicitation group interviews were used to collect data from eight learners from three different schools, and the data were analysed using a thematic approach. The findings revealed that children are aware of the conditions that shape their learning in rural schools. The information provided by the learners shows that much is yet to be done by the postapartheid government to address issues of equity and social justice through education in South Africa.