OpenUCT :: Browsing by Author "Graaff, Johann"

Browsing by Author "Graaff, Johann"

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Open Access
At the crossroads of the identity (re)construction process: an analysis of 'fateful moments' in the lives of Coloured students within an equity development programme at UCT
(2015) Nomdo, Gideon John; Graaff, Johann
Sociology has made valuable contributions in the area of identity theory. Recent research into the identity transformation process has seen much emphasis being placed on developing specific conceptual tools to unpack the variable nature of these transformations. These conceptual tools have been extremely efficient. Their focus, however, has tended to be either too macro-social or micro-social at times. As a result, not enough attention has been given to developing existing conceptual tools that can address individual identity transformations at both the macro and micro levels. This study attempts to address this need. What is illustrated here is the extent to which the application of a particular conceptual tool can be enriched by selectively drawing on other identity concepts so as to offer a fuller and more context-laden understanding of the identity transformation process. In this study I use Anthony Giddens' (1991) notion of 'fateful moments' as an anchor concept. Giddens uses this concept to unpack the existential basis of identity transformations. I draw on additional concepts from cognitive, lifespan and phenomenological approaches to identity and show how these can be used conjunctively to enhance the efficiency of the 'fateful moment' concept for exploring the existential dimension of identity transformations. I demonstrate the use of this 'fateful moment' concept by employing it to examine the identity transformations undergone by three Coloured students participating in an equity development programme at the University of Cape Town (a historically White institution). I show how their location within an equity development programme allows them to engage in a particular type of reflexivity, through which they strive to create meaningful continuity in their lives. My focus was to gain insight into these students' significant relationships with others and to show how these relationships impacted on the ways in which they experienced their sense of location in the world. As a result, the issue of 'self' and the desire on the part of the research participants to locate an 'authentic self' became an important driver in the research process. What is illustrated, therefore, is how an existential focus is able to offer new perspectives on Coloured identity, especially in relation to its inclusion under the racial category of 'Black' in post-apartheid SA. This thesis adopts a qualitative case study approach. The experiences of three Coloured UCT students are presented as three individual case studies. I examine their home, school and university contexts to develop particular biographical narratives for each of them, so as to better locate the circumstances under which their 'fateful moments' occur and the impact thereof on their sense of self. An in-depth qualitative analysis of each of these students' identity transformation experiences was conducted, which revealed new ways in which to think about, use and define the 'fateful moment' concept. My data included reflective essays, semi-structured interviews and observational field notes. I used my initial analysis of the reflective essays and observation notes as a means to develop some of the more open-ended interview questions. The interviews therefore served as a means of triangulating the data. I drew on a combination of content analysis and constructivist grounded theory for analysing the data. I established that these students' continued classification as Coloured in their everyday social interactions, impacted negatively on their perceptions of self. The inclusion of Coloured in the overarching descriptive category of Black, surfaced as a particular source of contention, resentment and guilt for the Coloured students represented here. These students were all searching for a way of expressing an authentic sense of self that was unencumbered by the restrictive and limited possibilities that was bound up in traditional constructions of Coloured identity in SA. What becomes apparent is that the 'fateful moment' concept, when used in conjunction with other selected theoretical perspectives, offers a much more nuanced understanding of the identity transformation process. As such, the strategic use of 'fateful moments' as illustrated in its application to Coloured identity in this thesis, allows us to get a much better understanding of how race feels, thereby adding value to the way in which sociological theory constructs meaning in the world. The conceptual framework for unpacking identity transformation developed here, makes available a particular sociological lens for assessing and measuring the transformational impact of equity development programmes at institutions of higher education. It also allows a more critical stance to be developed towards the tendency to homogenise the Black South African student experience. Doing so allows institutions the space to reflect more deeply on how to strategise around issues of social justice, equity and transformation.
Open Access
Corporate social investment in development: an analysis and critique of the Anglo American chairman's fund
(2014) Banda, Joy; Graaff, Johann
The purpose of this dissertation was to conduct an analysis and critique of the Anglo American Chairman’s Fund. In conducting this analysis the development framework on which Anglo American bases its Corporate Social Investment (CSI) was examined. The relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and development literature specifically Modernization and Dependency theory set the theoretical foundations for the analysis of the Chairman’s Fund. Three schools of thought were identified in the CSR literature namely; Neoliberalism, Neo- Keynesianism and Radical Political Economy. The role and implications of CSR theory and its proposed models (the CSR Pyramid and CSR Venn) was explored comprehensively in this analysis. The critique was based on two sub-objectives; to examine Anglo American’s understanding and interpretation of CSR, and how its chosen areas of investment and development framework fell within this understanding. Research data was gathered using a qualitative approach and specifically involved the analysis of relevant Anglo American CSI documents covering the period 2005 to 2007. Selected documents included annual reviews of the Anglo American Chairman’s Fund and case study reports. The findings revealed the intrinsic connection between CSR and development theories. Anglo American’s interpretation of CSR is based predominantly on a Neoliberal framework whose main version is Modernization theory. From this it was inferred that the CSR Pyramid model is identifiable with Anglo American’s CSI practices. Despite its contributions to development particularly in Education and Health, the Neoliberal framework adopted by the Chairman’s Fund has had some negative implications such as reinforced inequality across South Africa’s provinces and development sectors. The investigation of Anglo American’s CSI framework also unveiled the porous relationship between CSI and mining legislation. The overlap between the two has meant that Anglo American attempts to meet its obligations to mining legislation such as the Mine Health and Safety Act of 1996 (MHSA) through CSI. However, the findings indicate that Anglo American has not always done so effectively. This is evidenced by case examples examined in this study which highlight instances where Anglo American failed to appropriately address the environmental and health consequences of its mining operations in host communities. In general the findings indicate that the framework on which Anglo American bases its CSI has had significant influence on the extent to which it can contribute to development.
Open Access
The erosion of apprenticeship training in South Africa's metal and engineering industry
(1997) Lundall, Paul; Graaff, Johann; Gamble, Jeanne
This thesis explores the decline and transmutation of the apprenticeship system in South Africa, specifically as it occurred in the metal and engineering industry. It proceeds to analyse the most basic and influential imperatives which have driven this process. On the side of capital, these imperatives were the inexorable motive for a profit driven industrial organisation and on the side of organised labour, the imperatives to protect skills, jobs and wages. The existence of the one set of imperatives presupposed the need to redefine the existence of the other set. These contradictory imperatives have shaped the trajectory of the apprenticeship system in South Africa. They were contradictory because the one was an impediment on the untrammelled extension of the other. However, as the imperative of profit maximisation gradually became the predominant consideration in the relationship, it began to exert greater pressure on the character of the apprenticeship system. Within the apprenticeship training system, the imperative of profit maximization prioritised price calculation as the dominant consideration by which decisions and trajectories were chartered. Since the state mediated the relationship between the various economic interests in society, its interventions merely curtailed a more rapid consolidation of the effects of a profit driven industrial organisational imperative, within the apprenticeship training system. The triumph of the profit maximization imperative, systematically eroded the system of apprenticeship training in the metal and engineering industry of South Africa. An institutional inertia within the South African state resulted in the manifestation of erosive effects within institutions of the state empowered with governing and managing human resources development. This institutional inertia within the state was an accompaniment to the broader erosion of the apprenticeship training system at the workplace.
Open Access
From victims to warriors: collective identity construction at cancer movement assemblies in South Africa
(2015) Prinsloo, Erna Louisa; De Wet, Jacques; Graaff, Johann
Interest in this topic was awakened by the rapid growth of Relay For Life in South Africa and its striking ability to bond people during mass cancer gatherings. Questions were raised about the generation of collective identities during these assemblies, the nature of the activated identities, and how these relate to the broader debates about cancer and identity. This inquiry investigates the unexplored intersection of cancer and identity in the context of a burgeoning solidarity movement that has found a strong following countrywide. A contemporary hermeneutic perspective allowed a dual focus on the micro-sociological dimensions and the structural elements that converge to generate collective identities at assemblies. A theoretical scheme was synthesized out of the work of theorists who deal with collective identity, spaces set aside for people in crisis, social interaction during focused gatherings and illness narratives. A non-comparative case study was used to investigate the phenomenon at 20 cancer assemblies. Short-term ethnography, focus group interviews, photographs and YouTube videos provided the data that was analysed using the hermeneutic circle of interpretation. The findings showed that personal illness identities and situation-specific role identities interact with a potent cocktail of elements - ephemeral space, a shared focus on cancer, collective action, illusion and emotions - to activate three symbolic identities: a dominant collective identity that relies on heroic warrior mythology, a secondary collective identity that draws upon a transformation ideal, and a hidden identity which has its roots in the notion of being wounded. It is argued that assemblies rely on a dominant collective identity which is symbolic in nature and imposed on participants by the cancer movement. Participants are portrayed as positive, hopeful heroic warriors tasked with vanquishing cancer. Although ubiquitous at cancer assemblies, the dominant collective identity is nevertheless sufficiently fluid to allow a measure of hybridization, inversion and contestation. This inquiry gives credence to other work on cancer and identity which recognizes that the dominant identity provides benefits not offered by a victim representation. It also expresses reservations about the wisdom of expecting affected people to maintain a brave exterior in the face of an illness that causes emotional disequilibrium.
Open Access
How do discourses enable and constrain the power of development practitioners in interactions within the women's circle?
(2012) Perez, Teresa; Graaff, Johann
Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references.
Open Access
In search of the generative question : a hermeneutic approach to pedagogy
(2005) Graaff, Johann; Thesen, Lucia
This dissertation investigates, first, the kinds of transformation that have occurred in the perceptions and identities of a first year sociology class at the University of Cape Town (UCT), and, second, the learning experiences that have led to, or been associated with, those changes. It does that through Hans-Georg Gadamer's hermeneutics. On the first issue, Gadamer proposes that the social sciences brings individuals to a meeting with the alien, and that this meeting effects a transformation of the self. This means both (following Jardine) to 'return life to its original difficulty', and (following Kerdeman) to be 'pulled up short'.
Open Access
An investigation into the reasons for people's migration : a case of Zambian professional migrants in Cape Town
(2010) Kapindula, Beatrice; Graaff, Johann
This study investigates the reasons behind international migration of people. In particular, the study looks at the reasons behind professional migrants from Zambia to South Africa, taking Cape Town as a case study. The analysis is anchored around five different theoretical frameworks which explain migration from a micro and macro perspective. Theories founded on micro principles are the traditional push and pull theory and the Todaro model. The theory social networks completes the set of micro based models of migration. The two macro theories are the equilibrium and the new international division of labour, which look at the economic inequalities between sending and host regions
Open Access
Leisure-learning : revitalising the role of museums : a survey of Cape Town parents' attitudes towards museums
(1993) Mathers, Kathryn; Davison, Patricia; Graaff, Johann; Sillen, Andrew
The aim of this project was to assess the image of museums in Cape Town society in the context of the changing needs of South African people. A questionnaire examining museum-visiting habits and perceptions of the role of museums was distributed to parents via nine schools in Cape Town. Each school represented a different socioeconomic package so that the sample included parents with varying educational status and incomes. Parents of school-going children were sampled because they may be predisposed towards museums as institutions that offer their children educational and recreational opportunities and, therefore, represent a best-case scenario. The majority of the sample had visited a museum. A relationship exists between museum-visiting and higher socioeconomic status. Museum- visiting, though, was not limited to people with a higher level of education. Parents who were actively involved in a broad range of leisure activities were most likely to have visited museums. Although socioeconomic status and participation in leisure activities are related, museum-visitors appear to have leisure-lifestyles and not level of education in common. The results showed a contradiction in parents' attitudes towards museums; the image of museums was good but the image of the museum experience was often bad. This was particularly the case for infrequent museum-visitors. This group also experienced a feeling that 'museums are for a different type of person', which may explain why they do not visit despite believing that museums are worthwhile institutions. Museums appear to be perceived as institutions that offer children opportunities for learning and recreation. This could be the reason why young adults or seniors do not participate in museum programmes. This survey also showed that museums were associated with research on and preservation of the past. Black parents, though, were least likely to make this association and it is possible that the emphasis of most museums on the post-colonial past of South Africa is one reason why Black South Africans do not visit museums. There does, though, exist a generally positive image of the role of museums. The emphasis placed on leisure-learning or semi-leisure by young and old people in the townships does indicate that museums could meet an important need for constructive leisure opportunities.
Open Access
Social Entrepreneurship in the Colombian Choco: An investigation into the processes , obstacles and Impacts of the Commercialization of Smoked Fish
(2010) Stacy, Tyler; Graaff, Johann
This study looks at the commercialization of smoked fish on the Pacific coast of Colombia. Innovative individuals have identified this historical process of fish preservation as a social development tool, and through this are attempt-ing to alleviate prevailing local social problems. These processes, however, do face certain obstacles, and the impacts of these processes are felt in various lay-ers. Through fieldwork carried out in 2009, a qualitative investigation was car-ried out in three certain areas: Impacts of the establishment of smoked fish op-erations; obstacles to production and sustainable commerce; and future goals in the commercialization of smoked fish. This study will show the impacts in the form of provision of employment, wealth creation, and the effects on relation-ships. I will move on to highlight the obstacles they face in access to fish, capital, infrastructure, industrial fishing, arrival of floating cocaine, and market trends. The study caps off with the emergence of future goals in the acquisition of a mo-torboat, increased capital, improved production and business processes, and enhanced group dynamics. This investigation serves as a platform into the explo-ration of social entrepreneurship operations in the Colombian Choco, specifically those of smoked fish commercialization, and how we can better understand these obstacles and the future needs practitioners and local citizens are facing.
Open Access
Stigma management in waste management: An investigation into the interactions of 'waste pickers' on the streets of Cape Town and the consequences for agency
(2016) Peres, Teresa Sandra; Graaff, Johann
Contemporary approaches to waste management in South Africa have been driven by a desire to modernise and cleanse urban public spaces. Even though street waste pickers provide a separation-at-source service, thereby minimising waste to landfill, these people and their work continue to be stigmatised. Using Goffman's theory of stigma and impression management, this study establishes how evident stigma is in the agency of waste pickers. Agency was conceptualised using Emirbayer and Mische, to identify the management of stigma in waste pickers' choices, regarding established routines, future plans and their practical evaluation of ongoing circumstances. Following Giddens, stigma is posited as a source of both enablement and constraint to waste pickers' agential capacity. A social constructionist theoretical approach, combined with an interpretivist epistemology, was used to gather qualitative data using ethnographic methods. The first of its kind in this field, participatory fieldwork was conducted with waste pickers over the course of a year. Using a combination of thematic and discourse analysis the findings showed that stigma emerges in an insidious manner. To overcome being stigmatised by their physical appearance, waste pickers use an idealised presentation of self to position themselves as superior to criminals, illegal drug users and poor working classes. Although the capacity to overturn negative stereotypes was constrained because waste pickers were often unable to confine discrediting behaviour to back region spaces, the power of stigma was never absolute. Impression management enabled waste pickers to resist being positioned as matter out of place through their cultivation of relationships with residents and agents of social control. However, I argue that because these reciprocal relationships go largely unseen by the wider public, stigma continued to constrain the agential capacity of impression management strategies. The implication of the study is that, although agency is somewhat invisible, waste pickers are able to subvert the impact of policies designed to threaten their freedom of movement and access to waste. In achieving this, the unintended consequence is that waste pickers' agency further entrenches the stereotypical discourses that position them and their work as a threat to order in Cape Town.
Open Access
Through a glass darkly?': An enquiry into HIV prevalence on Stellenbosch wine farms
(2010) Morrell, Penelope; Graaff, Johann
Despite the complex and often highly specific nature of the social aspects of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, many projects working in the field do not base their strategies on local evidence, given the paucity of suitable local-level data as well as the presences of organisational constraints. A project offering HIV testing to farm-based communities in Stellenbosch is a case in point. While no prevalence data exists for this sub-population, the assumption was that there may be high levels of infection, following the organisation's experience of AIDS-related illnesses on these farms and the social conditions on wine farms which were thought to produce vulnerability for infection. Some in the organisation also thought that farm-based communities battled to access healthcare. During the first year of providing voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) on wine farms, however, the Stellenbosch Hospice's Farms Project consistently found lower than expected levels of HIV infection. This gave rise to the question being addressed in this thesis - which is what can be 'known' about HIV prevalence in a sub-population for whom there is no evidence-based prevalence data. In practical terms, if modestly-funded local-level organisations1 were able to undertake accessible forms of research, what would they be able to surmise about HIV prevalence among proposed beneficiaries? Taking an unusual approach to research on prevalence, this study employs a minimally positivist approach to investigate what can be 'known' about HIV prevalence on wine farms in the Stellenbosch area. It does so by 1 This term is used to include various forms of organisations - be they nongovernmental, non-profit or service organisations - which are small, relatively survivalist organisations. It may be a church-based organisation, a large communitybased healthcare organisation or a service organisation like a hospice. I do so to differentiate it from the larger, professionalised non-governmental organisations (NGO) which frequently have research capacity. My notional organisation is also not a community-based organisation (CBO), however, which are largely membership-based and whose access to their locations is usually more organic and embedded, while NPOs are invariably staffed by people who do not necessarily live in the locations in which they are intervening. vi triangulating data from the four sources that such an organisation might use, had they the capacity. These sources are published statistics and published articles, the opinions of local 'experts', and their own organisational data - in this case the first year of Farms Project's results. Significantly this does not include the more conventional surveys and statistical modelling, which is beyond this kind of organisation's capacity. After reviewing publicly available prevalence data and showing that there are none for this sub-sector, this study probes the HIV 'risk' and related prevalence data associated with issues of poverty, gender relations, 'race' and alcohol consumption on Stellenbosch wine farms. In addition it presents prevalence data from a sample of farms as well as reviews HIV 'risk' and prevalence in rural areas nationally. In doing so, it critiques the causal links often made between the kinds of social conditions found on farms and HIV infection. On the basis of the data considered and the methods used, the study finds that levels of HIV infection on farms could be expected to be lower than the average prevalence in the Stellenbosch health sub-district. It cautions, however, that this finding is not conclusive, not least as it was unable to consider some significant social conditions - like the movement of people, and effects of socially conscious farmers and the services they provide. In addition it is not generalisable to other South African farms, given the particularity of wine farms and of the Western Cape. The study concludes by noting the limited value of prevalence data to project design, given the range of factors that can affect it at any time, and that it necessarily masks variation within an area or sub-population. While prevalence is useful as a starting point in project design, it is important to disaggregate where infection lies through an analysis of key social conditions. The study concludes by highlighting the importance of this finer analysis for project design in order to avoid strategies founded on poor assumptions, while recognising the difficulty of this for modest organisations.
Open Access
Validating academic assessment: a hermeneutical perspective
(Bioinfo Publications, 2004) Shay, Suellen; Reed, Yvonne; Graaff, Johann
This article addresses the nature of validation in assessment, that is, the question of what we know, and the processes by which we come to know, in assessing student work. Interest in this question started with a panel discussion at the Kenton Education Conference between the three authors of this article. This article is a continuation of that discussion. It begins by drawing on the basic distinction between the hermeneutics of faith and the hermeneutics of suspicion, first set out by Paul Ricoeur. These are two ontological moments in social science theory, in everyday life, in teaching and in assessment. They cannot be separated. Nevertheless, and quite problematically, much of the assessment literature, and much assessment activity, ignores the first and emphasizes these cond. In addition, there is significant assessment activity in teaching which incorporates implicitly and silently, non-cognitive and situational factors, based on the hermeneutics of faith. Our question is: How is one, then, to validate judgements made in this post-positivist mode? How is one to assess the assessor? We conclude the paper with tentative suggestions of how criteria drawn from qualitative research and from psychotherapy can be helpful in this regard.
Open Access
What happens when the university meets the community? : an analysis of service learning as 'boundary work' in higher education
(2008) McMillan, Janice Mary Ellison; Graaff, Johann
Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 247-254).

Browsing by Author "Graaff, Johann"

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