Southern African Context Research Articles

Re-imagining an African ethical value-based social contract: in the context of using “Ubuntugogy” as an African framework

South Africa is a democratic country. However, some missiology scholars, citizens, and leaders see it as one of the countries that are very violent by comparison to others. On one hand, others see it as a country that does not abide by its laws. On the other hand, others see it as a morally depraved country. What causes this negative situation? One of the answers could be political freedom and political transformation, which basically came after a long period of struggle against the unfair conditions of the past apartheid era. As a result, issues around social imbalance are exacerbated by an influx of refugees and a resultant increase in population. Creating a more tangible rationale for social contracts that South African citizens and other neighboring countries would be attracted to commit to, is indeed a huge task. A missiological examination uncovers, however, that despite of all the cultural differences and frictions prevalent in societies, some people are genuinely able to share a set of basic values that arguably could form the core of the sought-for moral direction needed in South Africa. Thus, combining the missiological trends (Mangayi & Baron, 2020) and the ideas of Ubuntugogy (Bangura, 2005) could be functional in bringing home to the next generation the notion of henceforth living by the precepts of such a moral direction and social contract. It is therefore this articles intention to use missiological, philosophical, theological, and African knowledge systems anchored on Ubuntugogy (Bangura, 2005) to illuminate social contract theories for decent social change. Writing from a southern African context, I propose Ubuntugogy, because its deep commitment to community, character and hospitality, has much to contribute to interculturality in the important missiological mandate.

The validity of a general factor of emotional intelligence in the South African context

Emotional intelligence (EI) plays an important role in the prediction of important work-related outcomes, such as work performance. Southern African scholars frequently deploy total scores of EI without considering its hierarchical structure. This study investigated the presence of a general factor, as manifested among the subscales of the EQ-i 2.0, using an archival dataset of 16 581 employees in Southern Africa. Orthogonal first-order, single-factor, higher-order, oblique lower-order and bifactor models were specified to investigate the hierarchical structure of EI. The evidence supports the notion that a total score could be calculated for EI based on the EQ-i 2.0. A total EI score also appears to be predictive of employees’ individual work performance, as measured by their managers. It might, therefore, be practically meaningful for practitioners to calculate or use a total score when making selection decisions about employees based on the EQ-i. 2.0.Contribution: The findings of the present study offer insights into the theoretical and empirical structure of EI based on statistical techniques that have not been used on the construct in the Southern African context. Concurrent validity evidence further provides additional support that an overall quantitative score, based on the EQ-i. 2.0, has utility in hiring practices, where the aim is to predict future work performance.

Primary hip and knee arthroplasty at district level is safe and may reduce the burden on tertiary care in a low-income setting

BackgroundArthroplasty procedures in low-income countries are mostly performed at tertiary centers, with waiting lists exceeding 12 to 24 months. Recently, this is further exacerbated by the impact of the Covid Pandemic on elective surgeries. Providing arthroplasty services at other levels of healthcare aims to offset this burden, however there is a marked paucity of literature regarding surgical outcomes. This study aims to provide evidence on the safety of arthroplasty at district level.MethodsRetrospective review of consecutive hip and knee primary arthroplasty cases performed at a District Hospital (DH), and a Tertiary Academic Hospital (TH) in Cape Town, South Africa between 1st January 2015 and 31st December 2018. Patient demographics, hospital length of stay, surgery related readmissions, reoperations, post-operative complications, and mortality rates were compared between cohorts.ResultsSeven hundred and ninety-five primary arthroplasty surgeries were performed at TH level and 228 at DH level. The average hospital stay was 5.2 ± 2.0 days at DH level and 7.6 ± 7.1 days for TH (p < 0.05). Readmissions within 3 months post-surgery of 1.75% (4 patients) for district and 4.40% (35) for tertiary level (p < 0.05). Reoperation rate of 1 in every 100 patients at the DH and 8.3 in every 100 patients at the TH (p < 0.05). Death rate was 0.4% vs 0.6% at district and tertiary hospitals respectively (p > 0.05). Periprosthetic joint infection (PJI) rate was 0.43% at DH and 2.26% at TH. The percentage of hip dislocation requiring revision was 0% at district and 0.37% at tertiary level. During the study period, 228 patients received their arthroplasty surgery at the DH; these patients would otherwise have remained on the TH waiting list.ConclusionsHip and Knee Arthroplasty at District health care level is safe and; for the reason that the DH feeds into the TH; providing arthroplasty at district level may help ease the pressure on arthroplasty services at tertiary care facilities in a Southern African context. Adequately trained surgeons should be encouraged to perform these procedures in district hospitals provided there is appropriate patient selection and adherence to strict theatre operating procedures.Level of evidenceLevel III Retrospective cohort study

GWAS in the southern African context.

Researchers would generally adjust for the possible confounding effect of population structure by considering global ancestry proportions or top principle components. Alternatively, researchers would conduct admixture mapping to increase the power to detect variants with an ancestry effect. This is sufficient in simple admixture scenarios, however, populations from southern Africa can be complex multi-way admixed populations. Duan et al. (2018) first described local ancestry adjusted allelic (LAAA) analysis as a robust method for discovering association signals, while producing minimal false positive hits. Their simulation study, however, was limited to a two-way admixed population. Realizing that their findings might not translate to other admixture scenarios, we simulated a three- and five-way admixed population to compare the LAAA model to other models commonly used in genome-wide association studies (GWAS). We found that, given our admixture scenarios, the LAAA model identifies the most causal variants in most of the phenotypes we tested across both the three-way and five-way admixed populations. The LAAA model also produced a high number of false positive hits which was potentially caused by the ancestry effect size that we assumed. Considering the extent to which the various models tested differed in their results and considering that the source of a given association is unknown, we recommend that researchers use multiple GWAS models when analysing populations with complex ancestry.

The psychometric properties and measurement invariance of the Burnout Assessment Tool (BAT-23) in South Africa

BackgroundBurnout is an increasing public health concern that afflicts employees globally. The measurement of burnout is not without criticism, specifically in the context of its operational definition as a syndrome, also recently designated as such by the World Health Organisation. The Burnout Assessment Tool (BAT-23) is a new measure for burnout that addresses many of the criticisms surrounding burnout scales. The aim of this study is to determine the validity, reliability, and measurement invariance of the BAT-23 in South Africa.MethodA quantitative, cross-sectional survey, approach was taken (n = 1048). Latent variable modelling was implemented to investigate the construct-relevant multidimensionality that is present in the BAT. For measurement invariance, the configural, metric, scalar, and strict models were tested.ResultsThe analyses showed that the hierarchical operationalisation of BAT-assessed burnout was the most appropriate model for the data. Specifically, a bifactor ESEM solution. Composite reliability estimates were all well above the cut-off criteria for both the global burnout factor and the specific factors. The measurement invariance tests showed that gender achieved not only strong invariance, but also strict invariance. However, ethnicity initially only showed strong invariance, but a test of partial strict invariance did show that the mean scores could be fairly compared between the groups when releasing certain constraints.ConclusionsThe BAT-23 is a valid and reliable measure to investigate burnout within the Southern African context.

Social-ecological change: insights from the Southern African Program on Ecosystem Change and Society

ABSTRACT Social-ecological systems (SES) research has emerged as an important area of sustainability science, informing and supporting pressing issues of transformation towards more sustainable, just and equitable futures. To date, much SES research has been done in or from the Global North, where the challenges and contexts for supporting sustainability transformations are substantially different from the Global South. This paper synthesises emerging insights on SES dynamics that can inform actions and advance research to support sustainability transformations specifically in the southern African context. The paper draws on work linked to members of the Southern African Program on Ecosystem Change and Society (SAPECS), a leading SES research network in the region, synthesizing key insights with respect to the five core themes of SAPECS: (i) transdisciplinary and engaged research, (ii) ecosystem services and human well-being, (iii) governance institutions and management practices, (iv) spatial relationships and cross-scale connections, and (v) regime shifts, traps and transformations. For each theme, we focus on insights that are particularly novel, interesting or important in the southern African context, and reflect on key research gaps and emerging frontiers for SES research in the region going forward. Such place-based insights are important for understanding the variation in SES dynamics around the world, and are crucial for informing a context-sensitive global agenda to foster sustainability transformations at local to global scales.

Ostrich eggshell beads from Ga-Mohana Hill North Rockshelter, southern Kalahari, and the implications for understanding social networks during Marine Isotope Stage 2.

Ostrich eggshell (OES) beads from southern African archaeological contexts shed light on past traditions of personal ornamentation, and they are also argued to provide a proxy for understanding past social networks. However, OES beads are often understudied and not reported on in detail. In particular, there has been little research on OES bead variation during Marine Isotope Stage 2 (29,000-12,000 years ago) which includes the Last Glacial Maximum when changing climatic conditions are hypothesized to have significant impact on forager social networks. Here, we present the first technological analysis of terminal Pleistocene OES beads and fragments in the Kalahari from the ~15 ka levels at Ga-Mohana Hill North Rockshelter. We contextualise these findings through comparison with coeval OES bead assemblages across southern Africa during MIS 2. Results indicate that OES beads were manufactured at Ga-Mohana Hill North during the terminal Pleistocene occupation, based on the presence of most stages of bead manufacture. The review shows that OES beads were present across southern Africa through MIS 2, suggesting that culturing of the body was an embodied and persistent practice during that time. While the importance of OES beads as decorative objects was shared by populations across southern Africa, variation in bead diameters indicate that there was stylistic variation.

Food Insecurity and Health Outcomes Other than Malnutrition in Southern Africa: A Descriptive Systematic Review.

Food insecurity (FI) is one of the major causes of malnutrition and is associated with a range of negative health outcomes in low and middle-income countries. The burden of FI in southern Africa is unknown, although FI continues to be a major public health problem across sub-Saharan Africa as a whole. Therefore, this review sought to identify empirical studies that related FI to health outcomes among adults in southern Africa. Altogether, 14 publications using diverse measures of FI were reviewed. The majority of the studies measured FI using modified versions of the United States Department of Agriculture Household Food Security Survey Module. A wide range in prevalence and severity of FI was reported (18–91%), depending on the measurement tool and population under investigation. Furthermore, FI was mostly associated with hypertension, diabetes, anxiety, depression and increased risk of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) acquisition. Based on the findings, future research is needed, especially in countries with as yet no empirical studies on the subject, to identify and standardize measures of FI suitable for the southern African context and to inform public health policies and appropriate interventions aiming to alleviate FI and potentially improve health outcomes in the region.

A pandemic of inequality: reflections on AIDS and COVID-19 in the southern African context

In 2020, COVID-19 started spreading from Wuhan in China to the USA, the UK and Europe and then to the rest of the world. In Africa, the first case of COVID-19 was reported in Egypt on 14 February, while South Africa’s first case was identified on 5 March. On 11 March, the World Health Organization declared a pandemic. At the time, it was said that COVID-19 would become the great equaliser because the virus made no distinction between first and third world countries, between the rich and the poor, and nor was it influenced by gender, sexual orientation or race. When someone contracted SARS-CoV-2, no guarantee could be given that the patient would survive, regardless of who they were or their status in the community. This stood in contrast to the early experience of AIDS before antiretrovirals existed and when HIV was spreading like wildfire in sub-Saharan Africa and other countries with low or lower-middle-income status. It seemed as if these countries were doubly cursed — by poverty and the AIDS pandemic that was causing as many as 6 000 mortalities per day in sub-Saharan Africa. This led to the South African president at the time, Thabo Mbeki, to assert that poverty was an even greater problem than HIV and AIDS. It did not take long to see that COVID-19 was not the anticipated equaliser. As lockdowns were enforced within most countries across the globe and resulting in economic slumps, differences between rich and poorer countries and their respective citizens were thrown into sharp relief once again. This article reports how both AIDS and COVID-19 adversely affected women, the impoverished and those without access to sustainable souces of food and medicine.

Towards an African education research methodology: decolonising new knowledge

South Africa has a number of policies to protect and promote indigenous knowledge (IK). The increasing interest in research into indigenous knowledge and science education in southern Africa has led not only to the production of publications, but also to numerous conferences, seminars, research centres, projects, learning materials, and postgraduate courses. However, research methods that are aligned to indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) are yet to develop to the extent that IK policy, publications, and interest groups have. Notwithstanding some authoritative texts (Chilisa, 2012; Odora Hoppers, 2004; Smith, 1999), there is a need for research-based examples from the southern African context that can offer authentic and nuanced suggestions for IK researchers of what an African research methodology might be. In this paper we present a brief overview of arguments for research methods that are consistent with IKS, propose features of such research orientations, and some examples of research processes. We synthesise some of the knowledge we have gained in this field in South Africa and offer considerations and reflections that will contribute to the conversation and exploration of creative, culturally relevant, and ethical ways forward for participative IK research.

Percutaneous left atrial appendage occlusion: A South African experience

Background. Atrial fibrillation (AF) is associated with all-cause mortality, heart failure and non-fatal stroke, and thromboprophylaxis is traditionally provided with oral anticoagulants (OACs). Percutaneous left atrial appendage occlusion (LAAO) with a dedicated device is an alternative approach to thromboprophylaxis in patients with AF who are: (i) intolerant to OACs (e.g. life-threatening haemorrhage); (ii) non-adherent to OACs; or (iii) at a high bleeding risk with OACs. Non-inferiority of LAAO compared with OACs was demonstrated in e.g. the WATCHMAN Left Atrial Appendage System for Embolic Protection in Patients With Atrial Fibrillation (PROTECT AF) trial. Only very limited data are available on percutaneous LAAO in South Africa (SA), and no local outcome data have been reported. Objectives. To compare the safety and efficacy outcomes of an SA percutaneous LAAO programme with larger international series. Methods. All patients undergoing percutaneous LAAO from 2013 to 2020 at a single centre (SAEndovascular, Kuils River Netcare Hospital, SA) were included from an ongoing registry. Survival analysis was performed with the Kaplan-Meier method. Results. Of 101 LAAO recipients (mean (standard deviation) age 77 (10) years, 64% male) analysed, 90 (90%) had permanent AF, 1 (1%) persistent AF and 9 (9%) paroxysmal AF. The most common indication for LAAO was previous severe bleeding (n=23; 23%). The mean device size was 23 (3) mm and the procedural success rate was 98%. After a median (interquartile range) follow-up of 21 (5 - 41) months, 6 patients (6%) experienced stroke or all-cause mortality. Four patients (4%) had a life-threatening procedural complication (tamponade n=2 (2%) and device embolisation n=2 (2%)). These outcomes are comparable to large international series, e.g. PROTECT AF. Conclusions. The safety and efficacy outcomes of an SA percutaneous LAAO programme were comparable to large international series. A successful percutaneous LAAO programme is feasible in a southern African context

Esotericism in Botswana

Abstract The article argues that “esotericism” can usefully be applied to a number of religious currents in Southern Africa. With a focus on Botswana, we survey a range of practices, from traditional “shamanic” healing to Pentecostal NRM s to New Age spiritualities and neoshamanism, some presented here for the first time. The term esotericism is useful for analysing the religious situation in Southern African contexts for three reasons. First, through a typological understanding of esotericism as initiation-based knowledge systems, we define one part of the landscape (usually termed “shamanism”) as constituting a form of “indigenous esotericism”. Second, through the European colonial expansion, this indigenous esotericism faced a violent rejection campaign that parallels the construction of “rejected knowledge” in Europe. While this forced many practices underground, they have resurfaced within Southern African Christianity. Third, “western” esoteric currents have recently been imported to Southern Africa and enter into dialogues with the “indigenous” forms.

Stringing Together Cowrie Shells in the African Archaeological Record with Special Reference to Southern Africa

Archaeological explorations of the meaning of ‘trade objects’, such as glass beads and cowrie shells, remain hampered by theoretical and methodological limitations in both their analyses and interpretations. In this paper, we develop a methodology for critically engaging in multi-scalar questions of the circulation, exchange, and value of cowrie shells in African archaeological contexts. Species, size, dorsal modifications, and depositional contexts were compared across five sites from South Africa dating between 750 and 1350 CE. These results were positioned within a review of cowries from archaeological sites in the region and compared to the documented distribution of cowries from wider African archaeological contexts. Monetaria annulus were the prevalent cowrie species in southern African archaeological contexts over the last 2000 years, with a notable absence of Monetaria moneta, prevalent at contemporaneous sites in West Africa, as well as a variety of endemic southern African species. Breakage patterns on the dorsal surface correspond to different modification techniques, such as chipping and grinding. Combined analyses of modification, use-wear, and depositional patterns show variation, revealing a diversity in the biographies of individual cowries. While a comparison of the distribution of cowries across the continent confirms the circulation of cowries through known trade routes, such as the trans-Saharan trade network and the European mercantile network, they also reveal new pathways for exchange that highlight the need for further exploration of intra African networks. Finally, the breadth of the results of this study demonstrates the value of a focus on a specific artefact to address a wide range of themes, from exchange to the archaeology of everyday life.

Retrofitting Southern African cities: A call for appropriate rooftop greenhouse designs as climate adaptation strategy

In response to the burgeoning building integrated agriculture (BIA) discourse and industry, and assumptions of this land use form as a climate change adaptation strategy, this study considers the impact of rooftop greenhouses (RTGs) on the thermal performance of the built environment in current and future climate conditions. Based on empirical evidence, the study simulates the thermal impact of completely retrofitting an existing building in a Southern African urban context with passively controlled, non-integrated RTGs under current and future climate change affected climatic conditions. The study concludes that the current greenhouse technologies used in South African rooftop farms provide limited thermal modulation capacity for farmers, as well as generally negatively affecting the thermal performance of the associated buildings. Simulating both highly and poorly insulated buildings reveal contrasting impacts on the indoor thermal environment, with a 0.73 °C decrease and 0.55 °C increase in mean temperatures, respectively. Conversely, the highly insulated simulation reveals an annual energy consumption increase of 3.5%, which progressively worsens under higher climate change induced temperatures. These findings, based on current practices in the BIA industry, hope to inform both the choice of technology, as well as the development of appropriate greenhouse technologies to maximise their performance and enable co-benefits as often assumed in the industry.

The Keimoes kite landscape of the trans-Gariep, South Africa

Here we present the recently discovered desert kites of South Africa in terms of landscape-based data derived from LiDAR scanning that enable us to compare the morphometric and topographic characteristics of the individual kite funnels. We report on a least-cost-path analysis, and use both older and younger ethno-historical and ethno-archaeological observations to help understand possible animal and human interaction with the Keimoes kite landscape. Our results highlight the hunters’ understanding of animal behaviours and migration patterns, and the minimum requirements for funnel construction. We show that all the sites were constructed within 2 km of seasonal water pans, and that elevation relative to the surrounding landscape was key to the placement of the kites. We further found that the Keimoes kite landscape was probably one of complex inter-connectedness, with dynamic human land-use patterns interlaced with concepts of inheritable custodianship across generations. The Keimoes kite funnels are most similar to those of the Negev Desert in the Levant, and demonstrate (against long-held opinion) that southern African hunter-gatherers in arid regions intentionally modified their landscape to optimise the harvesting of ungulates such as migrating gazelle—in this case the local, desert-adapted Springbok. Our landscape approach provides a nuanced understanding of these features within the southern African context.

Leadership development process maturity: An Afrocentric versus Eurocentric perspective

Orientation: Organisations continuously find it a challenge to focus on the right areas that would result in successful and effective leadership development. This article reports on a comprehensive study to identify the leadership development process maturity areas fit for Southern Africa. Research purpose: This article aims to identify and report on Eurocentric and Afrocentric leadership development process maturity areas and assess how these are similar or different. Motivation for the study: This study was conducted to help enhance the understanding of which Eurocentric and Afrocentric leadership development areas, organisations, especially in Southern Africa, need to focus on in support of a mature leadership development process. Research approach: A qualitative, deductive approach was adopted, which included an extensive, in-depth literature review, followed by in-depth, semi-structured interviews with Southern African leadership development expert panel members. Main findings: A complementary, inclusive and comprehensive list of 125 leadership development process maturity areas was developed within the Southern African context, which could be used by leadership development practitioners as a guide to focus their resources and leadership development efforts. It also functions as a new foundation for future leadership development research. Practical implications: Southern African organisations should focus more on what works in this geographical context to ensure that focused leadership development interventions are implemented, resulting in a higher return on leadership development investment. Contribution and value-added: This article contributes to the leadership development body of knowledge, specifically relating to the maturity of this process within the Southern African context.

Afrokology and the Right to Communicate in Africa

This article argues for a reconstruction of communication rights theories from an African episteme and experience. It reviews the impact of key national, continental and international legal instruments as they pertain to communication rights in Africa, with a specific focus on South Africa and Zimbabwe. Using an Afrokological heuristic tool, it critically evaluates how the key legal instruments underpinning the right to communicate are developed and encountered in lived experience in decolonising Southern African contexts. We argue that an Afrokological orientation built on epistemological interconnectedness and conviviality may lead to insights otherwise not accessible. It can help awaken a new relational accountability that promotes respectful representation, reciprocity, and rights in communication policy processes in line with the lived experiences of those it is meant to benefit.

Birdwatching in a southern African context: explaining highlights on bird lists

ABSTRACT Although amateur birding makes important contributions towards conservation and the tourism industry, the precise motivations driving birders have not been extensively investigated. The aims of this study were to analyse birders’ highlights for birding trips within southern Africa and to establish whether local and foreign birders preferred to see rare or morphologically unusual birds, as opposed to common or morphologically indistinct birds. Morphological traits included: average body size, colour and unusual features; rarity-related traits included: maximum abundance, and range. A total of 673 terrestrial birds were included, and morphological and rarity-related traits were recorded for each species. Birding trip reports for long (two to four weeks) trips across southern Africa that included full sightings lists and highlights were used to indicate which species qualified as highlights (morphologically unusual, rare or both). Both among local and foreign birders, large-bodied birds were the main highlights, with the other characteristics not retrieved as significant. This contradicts the expectation that local birders would be more interested in rarity; however, this result could be explained by the fact that only long birding trips were considered, whereas rarity may more often be sought by specialized local birders on shorter, targeted trips.

Of Land, Bones, and Money: Toward a South African Ecopoetics by Emily McGiffin

Reviewed by: Of Land, Bones, and Money: Toward a South African Ecopoetics by Emily McGiffin Benjamin Klein Of Land, Bones, and Money: Toward a South African Ecopoetics BY EMILY MCGIFFIN U of Virginia P, 2019. xi + 249 pp. ISBN 9780813942766 paper. African oral literatures offer a rich repository of ecological knowledge expressed through words, idioms, and metaphors that emphasize human imbrication with land, animals, and the wider “more-than-human” world. Yet ecocritical scholarship has been slow to pick up on the value of African orality to environmental debate, despite a bourgeoning postcolonial turn within the field of ecocriticism over the last two decades. Emily McGiffin’s recent book makes a fresh and urgent intervention into this paucity of research, bringing an insightful postcolonial ecocritical perspective to bear on one particular oral form endemic to South Africa, namely the izibongo (praise poetry) tradition of the amaXhosa in the country’s Eastern Cape province. The objectives of the book are twofold: to open new avenues for ecocritical scholarship, which has tended to focus on written forms such as the novel along with Eurocentric ideologies of nature and wilderness, and to “offer a new perspective on the figure and literature of the imbongi” (the Xhosa praise poet) (175). While McGiffin’s expansion on more conventional forms of ecocriticism is evident in her broader treatment of social justice as pivotal to (rather that separate from) environmental concerns, it is her compelling portrait of the izibongo tradition’s complex relationship to land, economy, and history that stands out as a significant contribution to ongoing research in African literatures. Through critical readings of transcribed and translated versions of Xhosa izibongo (many of these obtained through fieldwork in the Eastern Cape), as well as interviews with iimbongi and residents in the region’s rural areas and townships, McGiffin charts the ways this highly versatile and resilient oral form has registered key shifts in the evolving political landscape of South African colonialism and apartheid, from proliferating mining and industrialization in the late nineteenth century and the systems of dispossession, displacement, and migrant labor this resulted in (chapter 1), through to the political corruption, neoliberal development, and undermining of meaningful land reform that challenges the nation’s post-apartheid democracy (chapters 4, 5, and 6). Through a consideration of iimbongi, such as Nontsizi Mgqwetho (the first female poet to have produced substantial work in isiX-hosa), the two trade union poets Alfred Qabula and Nise Malange, Zolani Mkiva (who performed at Nelson Mandela’s inauguration as president in 1994), David Livingstone Phakamile Yali-Manisi, and Thukela Poswayo, McGiffin articulates the ways their poetry underscores the entanglement of capitalism, race, gender, and environment in the southern African context. In an equally significant light, she considers how these poets articulate alternative ecological lifeways in South Africa, that is, “an alternative political economy of land that extends beyond narrowly defined market relations to acknowledge other values—symbolic and [End Page 224] spiritual, for example—that land holds” (16). McGiffin’s readings of izibongo are thus at once critical and recuperative, observant of their poetic engagements with history and of the promises they hold for the task of socio-ecological reworlding. Although McGiffin’s reappraisal of the izibongo tradition unlocks the genre’s value to contemporary ecocritical scholarship, two broad methodological problems raise concern over the alternative environmental ethic it proposes, namely the problems of primitivism and indigenous nationalism. It is difficult at times to reconcile McGiffin’s portrayal of izibongo as a dynamically evolving cultural form with her frequent romanticization of the genre through its associations with the past; for McGiffin, izibongo makes “present and visible more ancient ways of relating to time, language and landscape” (8). The fine line she at times treads between critical reappraisal and primitivist romanticism is augmented by her rigid reliance on a Western/indigenous binary, in terms of which the amaXhosa’s spiritual and ancestral relations with the land refute the more instrumental relationships of the West. One should note that notions of spiritual connection, ancestry, and lineage were just as significant to the white Afrikaner nationalist (and capitalist) imaginary, something observed by J. M. Coetzee in his essay collection White Writing. The rigid distinction...

Evaluating sampling methods in charcoal-rich layers and high diversity environment: A case study from the Later Stone Age of Bushman Rock Shelter, South Africa

In southern Africa, archaeobotanical studies are intrinsically linked to prehistoric investigation and the discipline of anthracology has already proved its potential for palaeoenvironmental and palaeoecological reconstructions. While the region benefits from particularly good preservation of macro charcoal remains in its sites, anthracological studies remain underexplored and the methodological framework still needs to be developed and adapted to the diverse southern African ecological contexts. Here we provide a review of sampling methods and sample representativeness and we compare it with wood charcoal analyses performed in southern Africa. We used the charcoal-rich layers from the Later Stone Age sequence of Bushman Rock Shelter (BRS) to elaborate a sampling strategy producing samples that can both be analysed in a timely manner and that are statistically representative of the whole assemblage. In light of our results, we discuss the relevance of applying anthracological methods developed in European contexts. The evaluation of the taxa richness, diversity and size distribution at BRS leads to the recommendation of the identification of at least 500 charcoal fragments per stratigraphic unit. Thick layers should be split into two distinct samples, one comprising the top half and the other one the bottom half of the layer. The analysis of thin layers with limited charcoal abundance necessitates increasing the surface of sampling. All size-classes should be analysed to avoid any sampling bias.