Post-apartheid Era Research Articles

Investigating the Experiences of Cultural Code-Switching Among Black Middle-Class Professionals in South Africa

This research investigates the experiences of cultural code-switching among Black middle-class professionals in post-apartheid South Africa. By virtue of the unjust and inhumane laws imposed during South Africa’s discriminatory apartheid regime, salient dominant and minority cultures have prevailed in the post-apartheid era. The discrimination against and hegemony over previously oppressed cultures have engendered layers of trauma and unhealed scars in contemporary South African society. Using in-depth interviews with a sample of professionals, the research shows how the dominant Western culture has shaped the perceived hierarchy of professionalism in the South African workplace and an unconscious demand has been placed on Black individuals to adapt their cultural beliefs, values, and norms. This study is the first to clearly identify a taxonomy of specific codes like lifestyle and appearance, and critically examine the psychological states and experienced emotions that influence code-switching among Black middle-class professionals. The qualitative findings were used to create a framework that includes the relationship between formative influences, internal and external pressures, and coping strategies. The study supports a core argument that South African Black middle-class professionals have presented as a quintessential example demonstrating the concept of cultural code-switching, although there was also strong evidence of change as the country has evolved, which has allowed for greater cultural authenticity.

Township Politics

This book review explores "Township Politics: Civic Struggle for a New South Africa," offering a comprehensive assessment of its content and significance. Delving into the intricate dynamics of grassroots movements during the post-apartheid era, the review highlights the author's adept storytelling and sociopolitical analysis. By humanizing the historical narrative through the voices of ordinary citizens and community leaders, the book succeeds in providing a nuanced understanding of the challenges and triumphs inherent in civic engagement within South African townships. The critique acknowledges the strength of the book's dual approach, combining historical documentation with insightful analysis, while also considering the potential challenge posed by its level of detail. Overall, the review positions "Township Politics" as a compelling and essential read for those seeking a profound exploration of post-apartheid South Africa and the transformative power of grassroots activism.

Variables influencing truth reconciliation commissions to promote post-conflict peacebuilding and statebuilding in Africa: a South African experience

Truth and reconciliation commissions (TRCs) are understood to offer cheap justice, a justice not bound by the law. South African experience in the post-apartheid era shows that they are significant tools for peacebuilding as well as statebuilding. The experience shows that the use of TRCs has created an authoritative record of what happened; enabled the victims to tell their stories without fear or embarrassment, and recommended legislative, structural and institutional reforms that avoided the repetition of past abuses. Successful peace and statebuilding are based on the above in order to achieve sustainable peace. TRCs promote rule of law, human rights protection, and ensure healing and freedom for all. However, the relapses of conflicts and political tensions, intercommunal hatred and divisions in African countries, create more questions than answers. These continuous issues show that TRCs have instead not resolved conflicts. The paper found that TRCs can only lead to successful peacebuilding and statebuilding if there is willingness on the side of the citizens as well as their political leaders. There is need to learn from the South African experience to ensure that TRCs lead to successful peacebuilding and statebuilding. The paper relied on historical research designed to study TRCs in Africa.

Penal-welfare systems in a (post)colonial world: The rise and disregard of alcohol and drug rehabilitation centers in South Africa

Apartheid South Africa developed a notoriously punitive and racist approach to alcohol and drug use. Less reported is that the state gave significant attention to rehabilitation, first for the minority white population and later for black South Africans. This paper asks why in the post-apartheid era—despite a huge influx of cheap heroin, methamphetamines, and other drugs—the government showed a relative disregard for rehabilitation. Addressing this question, the paper points to the configuration of forces driving public rehabilitation in the colonial era included the upliftment of “poor whites,” the need to maintain black workers’ productivity, and the ascendancy of the disease concept of addiction. In the post-1994 period these forces waned as a multiracial middle class came to purchase treatment in private rehabilitation facilities, the disease concept fell into retreat, and mass unemployment helped to position poor black drug users as an “undeserving poor.” The paper contributes to comparative studies on penal-welfare systems and the recent attention to drug histories from the global South.

Spatial governance of the peripheries in South Africa: Past lessons and a look into the future

were initially based on race, but they are mutating to be based on class despite the majority of black Africans being confined in the urban peripheries.Aim: This article aims to examine how governance works in the peripheries to determine lessons that can be learnt to ensure future social cohesion.Setting: The study was conducted in Johannesburg, South Africa, with participants from the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality, the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), Institute of Security Studies (ISS) and South African Local Government Association (SALGA).Methods: The study adopted a qualitative approach, interviews and a literature survey were used to obtain primary data. Data were analysed using content analysis.Results: This study reveals that spatial governance is a complex phenomenon, as there were factors that were not considered post-apartheid era. The adoption of neoliberalism and current approaches to governance have failed to fundamentally transform spaces in Johannesburg, spaces such as Soweto, Diepsloot and Alexandra.Conclusion: Spatial governance is still influenced by past legislations. There is a need to ensure that there is political will coupled with innovative measures to ensure spatial transformation in South Africa, especially in the peripheral spaces, and to minimise deprivation experienced in the peripheries.Contribution: This study contributes to understanding of spatial governance and its attributes in urban peripheral spaces.

The prospect of social medicine in South Africa

The term “médecine sociale” (social medicine in English) was first coined in 1848 during the French Revolution by Dr. Jules Guérin. It is a branch of medicine that focuses on the impact of social and economic conditions on health, disease, and the practice of medicine, with the intention of creating a healthier society. It is an interdisciplinary program between medicine and social sciences, expected to equip medicine with the knowledge and skills needed for analyzing the social causes of health and illness, akin to how the alliance between medicine and laboratory sciences provided insights into the biological, chemical, and physical bases of diseases. Social medicine is also interconnected with social determinants of health. While social determinants of health specifically target social and environmental conditions that affect health, social medicine has a broader scope, encompassing the entire social context of health, including societal structures and cultural factors. In the post-apartheid era, social medicine could play an important role in transforming the healthcare system to ensure equity and inclusivity, leading to improved health outcomes. This would require re-engineering the education of health professionals in South Africa at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, as practiced in many parts of the world. This will assist South Africa in joining the global movement of social medicine for the promotion of human rights and social justice in medicine, and a better understanding of the impact of social factors on the aetiology and management of medical disorders in the 21st century.

BRIDGING THE DIVIDE: ADDRESSING SOCIOECONOMIC INEQUALITY IN POST-APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS (2000-2015)

The practice of the apartheid system in South Africa has been widely condemned for perpetuating enduring socio-economic inequality and for its detrimental impacts on the lives of millions of citizens. While many studies have strongly affirmed this assertion, socio-economic inequality continues to arguably engender a long-lasting struggle among the black and colored communities in post-apartheid South Africa. This places a burden on the country’s successive governments to implement long-term policies that can rectify the plight of the people. Consequently, the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000 becomes an important reference tool for the African National Congress (ANC)-dominated government, which has initiated and implemented policies to combat inequality in the post-apartheid era. This study examines the roles and measures taken by the ANC government to address racially discriminated economic and social inequality within the framework of the MDGs. Using qualitative research methods, the study explores the background framework of the MDGs and analyzes socio-economic measures implemented by successive ANC governments between 2000 and 2015, focusing on areas such as education, poverty eradication, and healthcare. Primary and secondary sources are utilized to provide insights and support the analysis. The findings reveal that the ANC-dominated government effectively incorporated the frameworks of the MDGs into its formulation and execution of policy measures to eradicatesocial inequality in South Africa. The study concludes that the effective implementation of these measures has yielded considerableprogress, effectively addressing multifaceted issues such as poverty, healthcare, education, and unemployment. This conclusion alignswith the official South African MDG report, which unequivocally highlights the several achievements of MDG targets through policyimplementation from 2000 to 2015.

Functional or Neglected Border Regions? Analysis of the Integrated Development Plans of Borderland Municipalities in South Africa

The mainstream approach of regional integration impact assessments is mainly limited to assessing cross-border development projects/programmes. There is still a lack of critical assessment of how stakeholders at different institutional levels conceptualise the border. Local (municipal) strategic plans provide a reflection of the spatial imaginaries of stakeholders, perception planners, institutional power structures, and, to some extent meaning of the border to the local people. Integrated Development Plans (IDPs) in South Africa were adopted as an important development planning strategy in the post-apartheid era. IDPs of 49 borderland municipalities were systematically reviewed using the Key-Word-in-Context (KWIC) content analysis technique of the keyword ‘border’ to determine the importance of state borders in light of regional integration. Border security and management is one of the most common themes associated with the border. This suggested that borders were mainly perceived as threats and barely considered as a potential resource for cross-border cooperation or integration.

Analysing the response of CO2 emissions to business cycle in a developing economy: evidence for South Africa post-apartheid era

Introduction: This research addresses the response of CO2 emissions to economic fluctuations in South Africa post-Apartheid, covering the period 1990–2018. While previous studies focused on developed countries, limited attention has been given to sub-Saharan developing nations. The study challenges the assumption of constant emissions elasticity in current forecasts.Methods: The study employs a two-step strategy. Firstly, the rolling window regression with Hodrick-Prescott filtering was used to investigate whether the CO2 emissions elasticity varies over time. Secondly, a Markov-switching approach was used to examine the regime-switching behavior in GDP.Results and Discussion: Results suggest that CO2 emisssions elasticity varies over time. This was confirmed through alternative filtering techniques (Christiano-Fitzgerald, Baxter King, and the Butterworth filter). Markov-switching analysis revealed a regime-switching behavior in GDP, indicating negative CO2 emissions elasticity during recessions and positive elasticity during expansions. These findings persist even when accounting for monetary policy shocks and productivity shocks in the Environmental Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (E-DSGE) model. Noteworthy is that South Africa is among the top 20 greenhouse gas emitters globally.Conclusion and recommendations: The study recommends tailored carbon-pricing policies that are conscious to the countercyclical nature of business cycles. Pricing emissions higher during economic upswings aligns with periods of growth. Additionally, the government is advised to invest in research and development for energy conservation, efficiency, and renewable technologies to counterbalance emissions growth. Implementing emission caps and tax incentives can further enforce pollution abatement measures. Policymakers should consider these asymmetrical responses when addressing global warming challenges in South Africa.

Afrikaans in Film: From Apartheid Propaganda to Cultural Preservation

This article delves into the transition of Afrikaans from a hegemonic language to a minority language post-1994. Afrikaans was one of the two official South African languages in the 20th century. Afrikaans films enjoyed privileges because the government manipulated racial and cultural identities through subsidies and audience segregation. However, in the post-apartheid era, Afrikaans filmmakers had to find new funding models, such as relying on the Afrikaans satellite channel, kykNET, to commission content for cinema distribution. The article briefly discusses the symbiosis between the Afrikaans language and its film industry and how Afrikaans film remains sustainable despite not being one of South Africa’s most spoken languages.

Assesinng Sustainable Development Goal 11 in South African Context

South Africa underwent apartheid, a system of racial segregation, during which the country's governance agendas did not offer too much emphasis on environmental issues. The policies implemented during that time were lacking the environment-inclusiveness, and thus regrettably remained unsuccessful in promoting sustainable development. This article aims to review the current state of SDG 11, which focuses on sustainable cities and communities, in South African context. This research is a qualitative analysis of secondary data obtained through reviewing literature. The data was analyzed using conceptual analysis. The literature review shows that the democratic governance in a post-apartheid era implemented some policies that now regulate various aspects of SDG 11 in the country-specific context. Some of the significant ones are the Housing Act (No. 107 of 1997); Water Services Act (No. 108 of 1997); National Environmental Management: Waste Act (No. 59 of 2008); Municipal Systems Act (No. 32 of 2000); Breaking New Ground, 2004; and the National Housing Code, 2009. However, despite these legislative frameworks, there are challenges that still hamper the effective achievement of SDG 11. The findings therefore explore these challenges that include insufficient skills, inadequate funding, and inadequate training to develop technical competence, among others. The study provides recommendations for addressing these issues and improving the situation.

EMPLOYMENT IMPLICATIONS FOR NATURALIZED SOUTH AFRICAN CITIZENS

This article investigates the employment implications for individuals who acquired South African citizenship through naturalization after 27 April 1994, marking the end of apartheid and heralding the post-apartheid era. The study aims to provide insights into the challenges and opportunities faced by these citizens in the labour market, considering the historical context. Employing a qualitative research and historic approach, the study conducts in-depth investigations with naturalized citizens to gain first-hand insights into their experiences and challenges when seeking suitable employment opportunities. The findings of this study reveal the enduring presence of discrimination and difficulties in skills recognition and social integration for naturalized citizens in the labour market. However, the research also highlights significant advantages stemming from their language proficiency and cultural adaptability, which can positively influence their job performance and overall workplace dynamics. Policymakers,employers, and stakeholders can draw valuable insights from this research to design and implement targeted policies and initiatives aimed at fostering a more inclusive and equitable work environment.

Early life determinants of social disparities among young adults: A longitudinal study in vulnerable communities in South Africa

South Africa has achieved major poverty reductions in the post-Apartheid era, but substantial variations in progress between population groups have been documented, and inequalities between poor Black communities and other parts of South Africa persist. Similarly, life chances and inter-generational mobility vary with proximal early life economic environments. The long-term interrelationships of different aspects of these environments are not well understood.Using prospective data from the Birth to Thirty (Bt30) cohort, we assess the relative importance of early life family and neighborhood socioeconomic status (SES) for later life educational attainment and criminality among Black children from low-income communities in Soweto-Johannesburg, South Africa. We follow a multi-step nonparametric adjusted regression approach to reduce assumptions about the nature of the relationships between outcomes and exposure variables, and we express interactions as nonlinear marginal effects.Our study finds that both childhood home SES and neighborhood SES are predictive of more favorable outcomes later in life. Home SES appears generally more predictive of young adulthood outcomes than neighborhood SES, particularly for educational outcomes. Girls fare substantially better both in terms of educational attainment and in terms of lower criminal engagement. These pro-female gaps appear to be particularly large in higher SES homes for educational attainment.Our findings highlight the critical importance of children’s home environments in general, and particularly for children’s educational attainment. Further support for programs to reduce socioeconomic inequalities in the current adult population can likely contribute substantially to reducing inequalities in future generations.

Alternative methods in contemporary South African landscape photography

This paper examines the work of three contemporary South African photographers whose adaptations of landscape photography support inquiry into themes such as agency, identity, and belonging. None of these artists self-identifies as a landscape photographer, but each has taken up the genre to address topics of social concern such as: colonialism, under-documented histories, and the geographical imagination. Jean Brundrit adapts high-resolution survey technology to chart waves; Cedric Nunn creates extended captions to reorient views of the modern Eastern Cape landscape in relation to Xhosa history; and Francki Burger layers negatives in the darkroom to construct ethereal environments that examine emotive connections to land. These artists draw upon photographic techniques that may be considered ‘alternative’ in relation to traditional modes of landscape photography. In doing so, they challenge, reinterpret, and expand the definition of what constitutes a landscape image and landscape photography. Further, their respective works offer insight into the evolution of the genre from its nineteenth and early twentieth century applications in South Africa, as well as its utility for socially-concerned artists in the post-apartheid era.

Racial Bigotry and Afrikaner Agonies: A Post Colonial Reading of John Maxwell Coetzee’s Novel, Disgrace (1999)

South Africa has an exceptionally rich literary environment, particularly when it comes to the experience of coping with a tragic past. Afrikaners in South Africa had the opportunity to benefit from a privileged family foundation and the best socioeconomic and political outcomes thanks to the apartheid racial segregation system. This change has exposed the whites’ illusion that they can exist outside the historical process. Apartheid having been embedded in the consciousness of both the whites and the blacks has made it difficult for the whites to accept the reversal of the status quo within the master-slave matrix. This transformed society is affecting the Afrikaners, so they are struggling to reclaim and sustain a connection with the socio-cultural, economic, and political past. There is a disconnect between the individual and the social-cultural context, which results in agonies experienced by the Afrikaners in the post-apartheid era. The paper employed a postcolonial theory as propagated by Edward Said (1978) and Homi Bhabha (1994). It was also buttressed by New Historicism that grounds socio-political and cultural interconnectedness with the prevailing historical discourses, which gives a deeper insight into human relations. The interplay between history and cultural identity, culture and hegemony, and the resultant interracial divisions that conceal covert misogyny illustrate the reality that history may be recreated from various angles. A qualitative approach based on the library was adopted. The research design used in the study was analytical. By purposive sampling, the text was selected deliberately: Disgrace (1999) by J. M Coetzee. The selected text bulks on agonies Afrikaners go through in the post-apartheid era. This study hopes to contribute to existing post-apartheid dialectics on interracial relations

Racial Segregation in Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner and JM Coetzee’s Disgrace

This paper makes a comparative analysis of racial discrimination faced by the characters in the novels, The Kite Runner and Disgrace. Both novels are based on non-western settings and the characters become the victim of racial segregation. British rulers first promoted racial injustice in the process of expanding colonialism. As a result, racism emerged as a dominant factor of oppression of the people by power holders. Authors, in both novels, have shown their characters victimized by racial domination. In Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, the central character, Hassan becomes the victim of ethnic oppression as Amir and Assef dominate him and force Hassan and his father leave their home. Amir and Assef belong to Pashtuns and Hassan and his father belong to Hazaras in the Muslim community. They belong to different ethnic groups and the majority group dominates minority groups. Next, they become victims of Taliban oppression and are tortured and killed mercilessly. In Coetzee’s Disgrace, the central character, David Lurie as a white professor seduces his black student, Melanie Isaac, using his predominant racial power. Next, his daughter, Lucy is raped by three black men as a byproduct of the post-apartheid era. Racial attitude has created problems in the lives of the characters as they undergo many kinds of suffering in the novels. For analyzing the novels, racism has been used as a theoretical tool to explore the problems concerning human relationships. In The Kite Runner, there is the domination of one ethnic group over another ethnic group treating them as inferior and non-human. In Disgrace, there is the domination of whites over blacks and the domination of blacks over whites. Both novels reflect that racism based on any level is a social evil caused by human relationships and it has always negative effects on society. Due to racial segregation, one group dominates another group creating social problems.

Digital transformation and post-Covid-19 education in South Africa: a review of literature

Little thought or speculation was given to the possibilities of digital transformation for basic education until the global Covid-19 pandemic acted as a catalyst for digital transformation in education. Given the global trends toward digital transformation of teaching and learning, the South African basic education system has not been spared. While South African education policy was put in place to drive digital transformation, challenges persist in its implementation. The aim of this study was to examine the challenges facing the South African basic education system in digital transformation and assess the strategies that can be used to mitigate these challenges. Although South Africa is attempting to address existing inequalities and the digital divide stemming from apartheid policies, the inequalities of the post-apartheid era have continued and worsened during the pandemic, resulting in a multi-layered digital divide that hinders quality and inclusive education. We adopted a narrative literature review in this study, focusing on previous studies that focused on ICT adoption, digital transformation, and inequality challenges in the South African education system. The findings make apparent the impact of the digital divide and former policies in perpetuating educational inequality. From the literature, strategies to mitigate the challenges are highlighted, including consultations.

#FeesMustFall# movement in the post-apartheid era: legitimacy battle for leaders

PurposeUnderpinned by institutional legitimacy, this study explores how South African public university senior managers struggled to maintain legitimacy during an unplanned radical change process.Design/methodology/approachGioia's grounded theory analysis approach is employed to analyse interviews with 37 senior managers of public-funded universities in South Africa.FindingsThis study's findings show that a change without proper planning severely damages institutions in all aspects of leadership's normative, empirical, moral and pragmatic legitimacy.Research limitations/implicationsThis study contributes to the literature on legitimacy by illustrating the importance of institutional legitimacy during unplanned social change and the factors that negate legitimacy.Originality/valueThough other legitimacy models have been well developed, they do not apply to such unplanned social change in organisations. This study shows a different angle of the legitimacy crisis under unplanned social change conditions.

Reading the Bible in post-apartheid South Africa: The contribution of Gerrie Snyman

Modern historical criticism came to South Africa in the third decade of the twentieth century. However, analysing biblical books like human documents was not acceptable to church authorities. The historical-critical study of the Bible thus suffered a blow. It took four decades before some reformed biblical scholars felt at ease to reintroduce historical criticism. However, during the seventh decade of the twentieth century, overseas biblical scholars were already experimenting with the research tools of modern literary studies. Some South African biblical scholars followed suit, and soon narrative criticism and reader-response criticism were part of the package of methods for reading and studying the Bible. Gerrie Snyman was one of them, and reader-response criticism assisted him in reflecting on how he as a white Afrikaans speaking male, can continue doing biblical research in the post-apartheid era. He developed a hermeneutic of vulnerability and argued that readers should take responsibility for their readings of biblical texts.

The road to recovery: Financial resilience and mental health in post-apartheid South Africa

Following the post-apartheid era in South Africa, global economic hardships and financial shocks have forced most households to endure various mental and psychological stresses.. This has hindered the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 3 (SDG-3)—good health and wellbeing—prompting policymakers and academics to search for remedies to mitigate such stresses. Highlighting resilience as a means of improving wellbeing, this paper focuses on financial resilience and constructs an index using a multidimensional framework to investigate its association with mental health disorders. Using the South Africa National Income Dynamic Study alongside several robust estimation techniques, we uncover a negative association between financial resilience and mental health disorders among South Africans. More specifically, financial resilience is associated with an approximately 37% decrease in the occurrence of mental health disorders. The results also reveal disparities in the correlation between financial resilience and mental health disorders across different subgroups. Non-Whites (especially Blacks), urban dwellers, and male household heads are shown to most strongly experience the depression-reducing effect of financial resilience. This paper also shows that life satisfaction and household expenditure mediate the relationship between financial resilience and mental wellbeing. Toward the end of this paper, we discuss the implications of our results and offer some policy recommendations.