OpenUCT :: Browsing by Department "Centre for Social Science Research(CSSR)"

Browsing by Department "Centre for Social Science Research(CSSR)"

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Open Access
The 2003 Cape Area Study (CAS 3): A User's Guide
(2004) Seekings, Jeremy; Alexander, Karin; Jooste, Tracy; Matzner, Isaac
The Cape Area Study (CAS) comprises an ongoing series of surveys conducted in Cape Town.?The surveys have covered and will continue to cover a wide range of topics.?Over time, however, CAS will have a quality that is unique in South Africa (and perhaps Africa as a whole), in that there will be an accumulation of data on a focused social setting across a span of time, such that the value of the 'whole' is substantially greater than the 'sum of the parts'. CAS is modelled on the Detroit Area Study, conducted annually since 1951 by the University of Michigan.
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Activist networks and political protest in the Free State, 1983-1990
(SADET and UNISA Press, 2010) Twala, Chitja; Seekings, Jeremy
Chapter 14, Jeremy Seekings collaborates with Chitja Twala to examine activist networks and political protest in the Free State. The authors explain that although no regional UDF structure was ever formally launched in the area there were protests in the townships of Tumahole, Thabong (Welkom) and Mangaung (Bloemfontein); these later spread as far afield as Bethlehem and Harrismith.
Open Access
Acute psychosocial stress enhances visuospatial in healthy males
(SAGE Publications, 2013) Human, Robyn; Thomas, Kevin G F; Dreyer, Anna; Amod, Alysaa R; Wolf, Pedro S A; Jacobs, W Jake
Previous research demonstrates that stress can disrupt a number of different cognitive systems, including verbal memory, working memory, and decision-making. Few previous studies have investigated relations between stress and visuospatial information processing, however, and none have examined relations among stress, visuospatial memory performance, and planning/ organisation of visuospatial information simultaneously. In total, 38 undergraduate males completed the copy trial of the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Test. Those assigned randomly to the Stress group (n = 19) were then exposed to a laboratory-based psychosocial stressor; the others were exposed to an equivalent control condition. All then completed the delayed recall trial of the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Test. Physiological and self-report measures of stress indicated that the induction manipulation was effective. Our predictions that control participants, relative to stressor-exposed participants, (a) take less time to complete the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Test recall trial, (b) reproduce the figure more accurately on that trial, and (c) show better planning and more gestalt-based organisational strategies in creating that reproduction were disconfirmed. At recall, those with higher circulating cortisol levels (measured post-stress-induction) completed the drawing more accurately than those with lower circulating cortisol levels. Otherwise stated, the present data indicated that exposure to an acute psychosocial stressor enhanced visuospatial memory performance in healthy males. This data pattern is consistent with a previously proposed inverted U-shaped relationship between cortisol and cognition: Under this proposal, moderate levels of the hormone (as induced by the current manipulation) support optimal performance, whereas extremely high and extremely low levels impair performance.
Open Access
Adaptations, alterations and shifted strategies: the pragmatics of knowledge transfer in HIV and AIDS interventions in South Africa
(2009) Wreford, Joanne
The historical relationship between western and traditional health practitioners in South Africa was always uncomfortable and remote. This paper does not rehearse the complex colonial history of this disjunction, but rather focuses on some of the effects of that history on contemporary medical relationships, especially concerning interventions in the prevention and treatment of HIV and AIDS. The controversy about the rights of HIV positive patients to choose 'traditional' African remedies over biomedical antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) is considered first. The paper argues that by attaching the notion of 'pseudoscience' to traditional medicine in this debate AIDS activists' are reproducing an unhelpful contemporary version of the familiar 'scientific knowledge' versus 'traditional belief' dichotomy, an attitude that alienates traditional health practitioners and discourages useful dialogue and cooperation. The paper then introduces ethnographic coverage of an HIV/AIDS intervention in the Western Cape Province, in which Xhosa traditional health practitioners (THPS)1 have adopted and adapted the techniques of HIV/AIDS counselling, and advocacy of HIV/AIDS testing and ARVs, into their conventional practice. The testimony of the healers themselves is used to discover the effects of this process of medicalisation and the extent to which it has changed the THPs' relationship - real and perceived - with western medicine. The paper will show that although these THPs are eager to be involved with western medicine, this does not constitute surrender to a superior system, but is simply a pragmatic act of conciliation in the face of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In their practical approach, the healers can be recognised not as 'ignorant' or naïve, but realistic. The paper argues that the 'ignorance' and ineptitude of which traditional practitioners are often accused is in fact a consequence of the disinterest shown by western medicine towards them.
Open Access
‘Affordability’ and the political economy of social protection in contemporary Africa
(2016-12) Seekings, Jeremy
The ‘affordability’ of new or expanded social protection programmes depends on more than an assessment of the fiscal costs or the poverty-reducing or developmental benefits. Diverse international organisations have showed that programmes costing less than or about 1 percent of GDP have substantial benefits, and most low-income countries have the ‘fiscal space’ for such programmes (including through increased taxation). These international organisations have generally failed to convince national policy-making elites to raise and to allocate scarce domestic resources to social protection programmes. The result is an ‘affordability gap’ between what is advocated for African countries and what those countries’ governments are willing to spend. This paper examines four cases of contestation over the ‘affordability’ of social protection reforms in Africa: Botswana, South Africa, Zambia and the semi- autonomous territory of Zanzibar. In all four cases political elites resisted or rejected proposals for expensive reforms. In practice, the most expensive reforms that were approved were ones costing only 0.4 to 0.5 percent of GDP. The governments of Zambia and Botswana generally resisted even expenditures of this magnitude. The cost ceiling for reforms is far below the estimates of international organisations, reflecting political, normative and ideological factors.
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Africa's triple transition: popular perspectives
(Taylor & Francis, 2001) Mattes, Robert; Bratton, Michael
Sub-Saharan Africa has witnessed the end of foreign colonial rule, the rise and fall of autocratic political regimes, and the disappearance of statist command economies. The challenges were to turn populations into coherent nations owing allegiance to the state; to democratise the state structures that govern these populations; and to liberalise the rules that regulate economic transactions. An important source to assess these prospects are the views and attitudes of ordinary Africans. This essay reflects on the original data derived from a crossnational research project. Nine African states were surveyed between 1999 and 2000. An attempt is made to gather some propositions from the analysis of the data. Many present serious challenges to common wisdom about African politics. It appears that the process of nationbuilding has created coherent political communities with high levels of national identity; that democratising the state in Africa builds on existing indigenous demands from ordinary Africans; and that economic liberalisation proceeds in the face of a mixed set of values about market and state.
Open Access
The African Legislatures Project: First Findings
(2010) Barkan, Joel D; Mattes, Robert; Mozaffar, Shaheen; Smiddy, Kimberly
This report presents the "first findings" from the African Legislatures Project or ALP. The report is based on the preliminary coding and analysis of data obtained from research in six countries-Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Namibia and South Africa (MP survey findings from South Africa are not presented as that element of the project is still in progress). Because the purpose of ALP is to achieve a comparative understanding of legislative institutions across Africa, and is funded from multiple sources, we have adopted the practice of including data from as many countries as possible when we present findings from the project. Field research for ALP began in late February 2008 and is expected to continue through the end of 2010 as the work proceeds seriatim in 18 African countries.
Open Access
Africans' surprising universalism
(Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001) Bratton, Michael; Mattes, Robert
Africa is a latecomer to democratization. In terms of timing, Africa has followed rather than led other continents in giving birth to the reform movements that have installed elected governments, multiparty systems, and more open societies around the world. Since many African countries are dependent on foreign aid, they have also experienced weighty external pressures to liberalize. One should not automatically conclude, however, that the impetus for reform comes from outside the continent rather than from within. If political liberalization were a Northern idea being foisted on an unwilling South, then certain empirical facts should follow. One would expect Africans to 1) be unaware of the concept of democracy; 2) have distinct cultural understandings of its content; 3) be unsupportive of regimes based on competitive principles; 4) prefer alternative political regimes; and 5) be unsatisfied with the performance of democratic regimes in practice.
Open Access
Ahoy the Good Hope?: some bearings and signals in Seldom-Navigated Waters - on inequality in South Africa's Coloured and African population
(2005) Dieden, Sten
Previous studies have decomposed South African income inequality into inequality between and within the population groups defined by the apartheid regime's racial classification system. While a substantial fraction of total inequality can be attributed to differences in mean income levels between those population groups, the level of inequality within the racial groups has been found to contribute more to total inequality. Yet few investigations have attempted to elucidate inequality within these population groups. This study therefore explores the extent to which inequality in a joint sample of African and coloured individuals can be attributed specific labour-market related characteristics of their households or household heads. The analyses apply the Theil-L measure of inequality to the distribution of a consumption bundle in a household survey data set from 1995. The education level of household heads is the strongest single explanatory factor, followed by households' main income sources. The race, age categories, or gender of household heads do not account for large fractions of inequality in this sample.
Open Access
Ahoy the Good Hope?: some bearings and signals in Seldom-Navigated Waters - on inequality in South Africa's Coloured and African population
(2005) Dieden, Sten
Previous studies have decomposed South African income inequality into inequality between and within the population groups defined by the apartheid regime's racial classification system. While a substantial fraction of total inequality can be attributed to differences in mean income levels between those population groups, the level of inequality within the racial groups has been found to contribute more to total inequality. Yet few investigations have attempted to elucidate inequality within these population groups. This study therefore explores the extent to which inequality in a joint sample of African and coloured individuals can be attributed specific labour-market related characteristics of their households or household heads. The analyses apply the Theil-L measure of inequality to the distribution of a consumption bundle in a household survey data set from 1995. The education level of household heads is the strongest single explanatory factor, followed by households' main income sources. The race, age categories, or gender of household heads do not account for large fractions of inequality in this sample.
Open Access
AIDS and heritage management in South Africa: the case of traditional male circumcision
(2008) Deacon, Harriet
The AIDS pandemic poses a serious threat to heritage resources, tangible and intangible, and to communities who practice and value these heritage resources, especially in Southern Africa. Cultural practices, such as male circumcision and initiation rites, will also have an impact on the progress and effects of the AIDS pandemic. There has not been enough debate about how to deal with heritage issues in mitigating the impact of the pandemic and how to deal with HIV and AIDS issues in the heritage sector. This paper discusses how culture is represented as both problem and solution in AIDS discourse, and suggests how intangible heritage management can inform management of HIV risk. It then discusses the implications of a heritage management perspective for AIDS programming, using the case study of traditional male circumcision (MC) in South Africa. It concludes that by focusing on heritage safeguarding, AIDS programming can acknowledge the value that local cultural practices have for people, while negotiating acceptable change where necessary. This helps to engage communities and takes us beyond simply 'educating' people to change their behaviour.
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AIDS and human security in Southern Africa
(Taylor & Francis, 2002) Nattrass, Nicoli
The rapid spread of HIV/AIDS in Southern Africa is both a cause and a consequence of poverty. But while there is a clear link between AIDS and economic insecurity, there is no evidence of a connection between AIDS and security understood in the policing/state security sense of the term. Orphans are a human tragedy but not a direct security threat. AIDS does not appear to be high on the list of political priorities for most Southern Africans. Governments are thus likely to continue to respond to the epidemic unevenly and with limited resources.
Open Access
AIDS and human security in Southern Africa
(2002) Nattrass, Nicoli
HIV/AIDS is the greatest health threat facing humankind - particularly for those people living in Southern Africa. Of the estimated 40 million people infected with HIV worldwide, over two thirds live in Sub-Saharan Africa. Southern African countries top the HIV prevalence tables. According to the World Bank, if AIDS had not affected Southern Africa, 'life expectancy would have reached 64 by 2010-15. Instead, it will have regressed to 47, reversing the gains of the past 30 years' (2001: 139). Figure 1 shows how life expectancy rose in the 10 Southern African countries during the 1970s and early 1980s, but then fell sharply in the 1990s as the AIDS epidemic and economic crisis took their toll.
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AIDS and the scientific governance of medicine in post-apartheid South Africa
(Oxford University Press (OUP), 2008) Nattrass, Nicoli
AIDS policy in post-apartheid South Africa has been shaped by persistent antipathy towards antiretroviral drugs (ARVs). This hostility was framed initially by President Mbeki's questioning of AIDS science and subsequently by direct resistance to implementing prevention and treatment programmes using ARVs. Once that battle was lost in the courts and in the political arena, the Health Minister, Tshabalala-Msimang, continued to portray ARVs as 'poison' and to support alternative untested therapies. Demographic modelling suggests that if the national government had used ARVs for prevention and treatment at the same rate as the Western Cape (which defied national policy on ARVs), then about 171,000 HIV infections and 343,000 deaths could have been prevented between 1999 and 2007. Two key scientific bodies, the Medicines Control Council (MCC) and the Medical Research Council (MRC) fall under the ambit of the national Department of Health. Although notionally independent, both have experienced political interference as a consequence of their scientific approach towards AIDS. AIDS policy improved after the Deputy President was given responsibility for coordinating AIDS policy in 2006. However, the undermining of the scientific governance of medicine is a legacy that still needs to be addressed.
Open Access
AIDS and the scientific governance of medicine in South Africa
(2006) Nattrass, Nicoli
South Africa's approach to AIDS has been shaped by persistent antipathy on the part of President Mbeki and his Health Minister towards antiretroviral therapy. This was framed initially by Mbeki's questioning of AIDS science and subsequently by direct resistance to implementing prevention and treatment programmes using antiretrovirals. Once that battle was lost in the courts and in the political arena, the Health Minister continued a war of attrition by portraying antiretrovirals as 'poison', supporting alternative untested therapies and undermining the scientific regulation of medicines. Two key scientific bodies, the Medicines Control Council (MCC) and the Medical Research Council (MRC) fall under the ambit of the national Department of Health. Although notionally independent, both have experienced political interference as a consequence of their scientific approach to AIDS. The MCC appears no longer able to respond to complaints if these are lodged against alternative therapists supported by the Health Minister, and its law enforcement personnel have been over-ruled by the Director General of Health.?
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AIDS Conspiracy Beliefs and Unsafe Sex in Cape Town
(Springer Verlag (Germany), 2011) Grebe, Eduard; Nattrass, Nicoli
This paper uses multivariate logistic regressions to explore: (1) potential socio-economic, cultural, psychological and political determinants of AIDS conspiracy beliefs among young adults in Cape Town; and (2) whether these beliefs matter for unsafe sex. Membership of a religious organisation reduced the odds of believing AIDS origin conspiracy theories by more than a third, whereas serious psychological distress more than doubled it and belief in witchcraft tripled the odds among Africans. Political factors mattered, but in ways that differed by gender. Tertiary education and relatively high household income reduced the odds of believing AIDS conspiracies for African women (but not men) and trust in President Mbeki's health minister (relative to her successor) increased the odds sevenfold for African men (but not women). Never having heard of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), the pro-science activist group that opposed Mbeki on AIDS, tripled the odds of believing AIDS conspiracies for African women (but not men). Controlling for demographic, attitudinal and relationship variables, the odds of using a condom were halved amongst female African AIDS conspiracy believers, whereas for African men, never having heard of TAC and holding AIDS denialist beliefs were the key determinants of unsafe sex.
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AIDS denialism versus science
(Prometheus Books, 2009) Nattrass, Nicoli
Open Access
AIDS Growth and Distribution in South Africa
(2002) Nattrass, Nicoli
This paper discusses recent research into the economic impact of AIDS in South Africa. It focuses on demographic and macroeconomic modelling and on firm-level impact studies. While the overall picture is murky, certain trends and findings are indicative of a likely increase in inequality. Relatively skilled workers could benefit from greater employment, higher wages, a larger supply of products produced for their niche markets, and may also live longer as it becomes economically viable for firms to provide anti-retroviral medication. The relatively unskilled and unemployed will probably experience declining income, falling consumer welfare, and suffer greater morbidity and mortality from AIDS. The size of the pie may shrink as a result of AIDS, but employed people - and especially the skilled amongst them - will enjoy a growing share.
Open Access
AIDS growth and distribution in South Africa
(2002) Nattrass, Nicoli
This paper discusses recent research into the economic impact of AIDS in South Africa. It focuses on demographic and macroeconomic modelling and on firm-level impact studies. While the overall picture is murky, certain trends and findings are indicative of a likely increase in inequality. Relatively skilled workers could benefit from greater employment, higher wages, a larger supply of products produced for their niche markets, and may also live longer as it becomes economically viable for firms to provide anti-retroviral medication. The relatively unskilled and unemployed will probably experience declining income, falling consumer welfare, and suffer greater morbidity and mortality from AIDS. The size of the pie may shrink as a result of AIDS, but employed people - and especially the skilled amongst them - will enjoy a growing share.
Open Access
AIDS, economic growth and income distribution in South Africa
(Wiley, 2003) Nattrass, Nicoli
South Africa is home to more HIV-positive people than any other country in the world. This is a developmental disaster, yet our understanding of the economic impact of the AIDS pandemic is sketchy at best. Macroeconomic modellers are divided over whether the overall impact of the epidemic will be to raise or lower per capita GDP, and there are no studies of the impact of AIDS on income distribution. This paper provides a critical overview of recent macro-economic research on the impact of AIDS in South Africa. It is not a comprehensive bibliographic review (as in CADRE 2000a and 2000b), but rather a selective analysis of recent and important pieces of economic research. The key objective is to explain, in an accessible manner, how different macroeconomic models arrive at different results and to point to the limitations of these models - in particular, their failure to take into account the dynamic adjustments suggested by firm-level studies. It is argued that the recent sharp decline in the cost of antiretroviral medication will probably result in more firms providing such medication to their workers (particularly skilled workers). If so, then the economic impact of AIDS will be less substantial than that projected by the main macroeconomic models. However, the distributional implications are unsettling.