African Minds
This page shows the latest publications (in descending order of publication date) from African Minds.
Metadata is licensed as Creative Commons Zero (CC0) and is retrieved from Thoth’s open APIs.
Last updated: 2026-06-03 01:00:07
May 2026
Neoliberalism, Democratic Erosion and the Global Struggle for Social Justice
Editor: Tor Halvorsen
Editor: Chris Tapscott
https://doi.org/10.47622/9780639891330
The global expansion of neoliberal capitalism and its contentious relationship with democracy remains one of the most pressing debates of our time. This book offers a comprehensive examination of how capitalism has adapted from merchant and industrial forms into the modern era of financialization which underpins the current globalising order. By tracing the evolution of the state, it explores the deliberate political decisions that have prioritised market efficiency over social welfare.The central thesis of this book is that neoliberalism is not an inevitable evolutionary endpoint of human development, but rather a crafted ideology designed to “tame” democracy through technocratic and judicial constraints. The authors argue that a fundamental tension exists between the market’s “free play of forces” and the democratic principle of social entitlement. As the state shifts from an economic regulator to a market broker, democratic oversight is increasingly displaced by insulated, expert-driven authorities. This restructuring has not only fuelled global inequality but has also turned technology into a tool for digital coloniality, where transnational firms extract value through surveillance and algorithmic optimisation. “Techno-feudalism” epitomises how the contemporary trajectory of datafication serves corporate interests over democratic publics.Unlike literature that merely critiques, this book identifies emerging “geo-economic fragmentation” and the revival of socialdemocratic ideas as openings for democratic renewal. Ultimately, the book argues that the current hegemony is neither inevitable nor irreversible. By analysing the rise of right-wing populism and the growing disillusionment with the neoliberal narrative, the contributors highlight the urgent need to reassert democratic control over economic systems to address the existential threats of environmental collapse and social polarisation.
April 2026
October 2025
Dismantling Gender Barriers in STEM: Perspectives from the Global South
Editor: Hannah Whitehead
Editor: Matilda Dipieri
Cape Town: African Minds, 2025
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781067253776
Education and science are foundational to international development, yet gender inequities in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) persist globally. While these disparities are widespread, most research and discourse on gender in STEM originates from the Global North. This edited collection amplifies contributions from the Global South, presenting twelve case studies supported by Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC). The case studies are led by researchers across Africa and Latin America who investigate gender inequities in STEM within their local or regional contexts.
Organised around four interwoven themes, (1) building gender-responsive and equitable STEM institutions, (2) leveraging data to address gender disparities, (3) fostering leadership and mentorship for women in STEM, and (4) ensuring support across academic and career pathways, the book offers a comprehensive view of the challenges and innovations shaping gender equity in STEM. Taken together, these chapters provide critical insights and recommendations to promote gender equity in STEM across the Global South and beyond.
August 2025
Sea-ice: Vol. 3 in the FicSci Series
Cape Town: African Minds, 2025
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781067253653
What is science communication? This collection proposes that it can be creative writing aimed at the heart, rather than information directed to the mind.
FicSci playfully subverts the term ‘science fiction’ to offer an experimental process that explores the limits of imagination in relation to scientific possibility (and vice versa). FicSci is an experiment in hybridised creative practice that induces new forms of knowledge-making between the hard sciences and the social world. This collection offers writing that emerged from an encounter bringing together creative writers with a sea ice scientist based in a chemical and materials engineering department.
The presented research invited contemplation of scientific aspects of the properties, formation and behaviour of sea ice, especially in the Southern Ocean. The creative writings that emerged offer new directions for thinking about the relation between creative expression and Antarctic science.
June 2025
Linking Education and the Local Economy: Intermediaries in a Furniture Ecosystem
Author: André Kraak
Cape Town: African Minds, 2025
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781067253714
Linking Education and the Local Economy examines the collapse of linkages between South Africa’s post-school education and training system and the declining furniture industry. Using a case study approach, it explores reasons behind the erosion of the sector’s competitiveness. The book shows how intermediaries – organisations or individuals bridging gaps between fi rms, education providers and government – could revitalise the industry by fostering collaboration, knowledge exchange and innovation.
February 2025
Doctoral Education in Context: Perspectives from Africa
Editor: Jan Botha
Editor: Liezel Frick
Editor: Nompilo Tshuma
Cape Town: African Minds, 2025
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781067253530
Doctoral Education in Context: Perspectives from Africa shares lived experiences and insights of doctoral supervisors from 16 different countries in Africa. The book’s originality lies also in the contributors’ profiles as practicing, novice doctoral supervisors. All of them graduated from the Training Course for Supervisors offered by the Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology (CREST) at Stellenbosch University in South Africa, with the support of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD)/German Rectors’ Conference (HRK) through the DIES Programme.
December 2024
Education Research in African Contexts: Traditions and New Beginnings for Knowledge and Impact
Editor: Paul Webb
Editor: Mathabo Khau
Editor: Proscovia Namubiru Ssentamu
Cape Town: African Minds, 2024
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781067253509
This compelling anthology illuminates the transformative role of education research in Africa, presenting a bricolage of studies by scholarship holders of the East and South African-German Centre of Excellence for Educational Research Methodologies and Management (CERM-ESA). Bridging insights from these two regions, the book examines the vital intersections between education, society and culture, with a focus on fostering sustainable educational reform and empowering local communities.
At the heart of the book is a shared commitment to evolving higher education in Africa through collaborative, context-sensitive research. Anchored by the partnership of five universities across two continents, CERM-ESA’s initiatives support capacity-building and innovation in African educational contexts, working directly with schools, communities and policymakers to address the unique challenges of the continent. With themes ranging from indigenous methodologies and climate change education to gender equity and academic resilience, the chapters showcase diverse and locally relevant approaches that inform and inspire change across educational sectors.
Targeted toward education researchers, policymakers and practitioners invested in African development, Education Research in African Contexts offers an in-depth exploration of educational methodologies that honour traditions while embracing progressive change. The book provides invaluable insights for educators and leaders seeking to support responsive, impactful education systems.
Through critical reflection and innovative research, the volume reimagines educational paradigms that respect African realities, encouraging readers to explore new possibilities for inclusive and transformative research.
October 2024
From Memory to Marble Vol 1: The Historical Frieze of the Voortrekker Monument, Part I: The Frieze
Author: Elizabeth Rankin
Author: Rolf Michael Schneider
Cape Town: African Minds, 2024
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928502852
For the first time the 92-metre frieze of the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria, one of the largest historical narratives in marble, has been made the subject of a book.
The pictorial narrative of the Boer pioneers who conquered South Africa’s interior during the ‘Great Trek’ (1835-52) represents a crucial period of South Africa’s past. Forming the concept of the frieze both reflected on and contributed to the country’s socio-political debates in the 1930s and 1940s when it was made. The frieze is unique in that it provides rare evidence of the complex processes followed in creating a major monument.
Based on unpublished documents, drawings and models, these processes are unfolded step by step, from the earliest discussions of the purpose and content of the frieze through all the stages of its design to its shipping to post-war Italy to be copied into marble and final installation in the Monument. The book examines how visual representation transforms historical memory in what it chooses to recount, and the forms in which it depicts this. It also investigates the active role the Monument played in the development of apartheid, and its place in post-apartheid heritage.
September 2024
State Power in Land Reform: Barriers to implementation in the Western and Northern Cape, South Africa, 1990–2006
Author: Thorvald Gran
Cape Town: African Minds, 2024
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928502869
ANC land reform started on a good footing with the RDP, but has since moved to a policy of supporting entrepreneurial emerging middle-class black farmers rather than the immiserated rural subsistence farmers. This has shifted government funding and support towards the urban areas leaving rural areas destitute.
In State Power in Land Reform, the author relies on a robust theoretical frame, extensive policy analysis and empirical data to advocate for a new engagement with local communities through rejuvenated municipalities, that is, through strong local institutions.
State Power in Land Reform provides a valuable analytical account for both the historian and the archive.
Revisiting Africa’s Flagship Universities: Local, National and International Dynamics
Author: James Ransom
Cape Town: African Minds, 2024
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928502951
Revisiting Africa’s Flagship Universities: National, International, and Local Dynamics offers a compelling exploration of Africa’s large, public higher education institutions. The book delves into the evolving roles of these universities, examining how they navigate their responsibilities at national, international and local levels.
The book uncovers the tensions between global aspirations, national relevance and local realities. In doing so, this insightful work sheds light on the unique challenges and opportunities
faced by African flagship universities, revealing their potential as forces for local, national and international collaboration and development.
Revisiting Africa’s Flagship Universities provides rigorous evidence on the relevance of higher education at the local and national level, and the interrelation between these and the
burgeoning international roles of universities. This book makes for important reading for university staff, policymakers, and anyone interested in the future of higher education in Africa.
August 2024
Night-sky: Vol. 2
Editor: Mehita Iqani
Editor: Wamuwi Mbao
Cape Town: African Minds, 2024
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928502920
What is science communication? This collection proposes that it can be creative writing aimed at the heart, rather than information directed to the mind.
FicSci playfully subverts the term ‘science fiction’ to offer an experimental process that explores the limits of imagination in relation to scientific possibility (and vice versa). FicSci is an experiment in hybridized creative practice that induces new forms of knowledge-making between the hard sciences and the social world. This collection offers writing that emerged from an encounter that brought twelve creative writers together with an astronomer.
The presented science invited contemplation of scientific aspects of the night sky, in specific X-ray binary stars, extra-galactic sources, and magellanic clouds. The creative writings that emerged are attendant to the wider potentialities of scientific thought, and reveal how methodologies for storying the scientific encounter are creatively multi-form.
Rocklands: On Becoming the First Generation of Black Psychologists in Post-Apartheid South Africa
Author: Liezille Jean Jacobs
Cape Town: African Minds, 2024
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928502890
This book makes a brave and erudite scholarly contribution to the field of psychology. Its method is unconventional but carefully considered. Those who have provided comments on the manuscript unanimously concur – this book is essential reading for students and academics, families and patriarchs in equal measure.
October 2023
African Science Granting Councils: Towards Sustainable Development in Africa
Author: Teboho Moja
Author: Samuel Kehinde Okunade
South Africa: African Minds, 2023
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928502791
This book delves into the research-policy nexus as it relates to development in Africa. It does so by examining four country-cases – Botswana, Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya and Zambia – while referring to South Africa as a possible exemplar case.
September 2023
Collaboration in Development: A South African Heritage
Author: Godwin Khosa
South Africa: African Minds, 2023
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928502821
South Africa is under-capitalising on its rich ways of doing business. One such way, the focus of this book, is collaboration.
The collaboration approach should be promoted to the same extent that the Japanese have entrenched and exported their ‘small incremental improvement’ Kaizen approach. There are many such underexplored indigenous ways of doing business in Africa. Where improvement is required in relation to development and organisational performance, the need is not so much building new capacities as discovering and implementing more strategic and effective utilisation of existing indigenous ones. And there is no need to cringe when African culture is used to inform science.
This book uses history, interviews and documentary evidence from South Africa to weave together a story, arguments and lessons about collaboration.
July 2023
Flow: FicSci 01
Editor: Mehita Iqani
Editor: Wamuwi Mbao
South Africa: African Minds, 2023
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928502739
The practice and theory of science communication can take many forms. One of them, which this volume represents, explores what forms of knowledge might be constructed when creative writing encounters science.
Working outwards from a theoretical framework that sees the sciences as discourses constructed by human endeavour through forms of language and practices of authority, this collection offers writing that emerged from a scientific encounter. It explores the relationship between creativity and scientific experiment, between the languages deployed by scientists in their experiments and analyses and the languages forged by creatives in their ongoing efforts to understand the human condition.
FicSci 01 brought eleven creative writers together with a biomechanical engineer. The presented science invited creative enquiry into different aspects of flow, that physical property that is so central to research in fluid mechanics. This anthology collects the results of that encounter.
April 2023
Transformative Innovation in Times of Change: Lessons for Africa from COVID-19
Author: Erika Kraemer-Mbula
Author: Rebecca Hanlin
Author: Rob Byrne
Author: Chux Daniels
Author: Ann Kingiri
South Africa: African Minds, 2023
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928502760
This book was produced in an environment of uncertainty and constantly changing narratives about COVID-19 and its effects. From a narrative of survival in 2020 to contain the spread of the virus with a central role of government leadership, evidence-informed decisions, solidarity and a scientific race to develop a vaccine taking the central stage; to a later narrative in 2021 focused on socio-economic recovery, building back better, managing vaccine inequalities and visions and proposals for post-COVID societies.
In 2022, we have seen a move to a narrative of post-pandemic (rather than post-COVID-19) and “learning to live with the virus” with societies in the global South learning to navigate the harsh economic realities by looking at opportunities emerging in the digital and regional spaces. The production of this book embeds some of these dominant narratives in different chapters, as they were developed over such unstable ground.
This experience has put a spotlight on the importance of innovative solutions, and the role of public sector, raising a new interest in governance systems and structures, and ways to strengthen governance overall. The pandemic has propelled countries across the world to innovate and develop more resilient systems and strategies that will enable us to gain the capacity to tackle complex challenges we face today and those that will come.
We hope this book helps us extract some valuable lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic. After all, learning from a crisis may well be our best way to prepare for the future.
January 2023
Digital Technology in Capacity Development: Enabling Learning and Supporting Change
Editor: Joanna Wild
Editor: Femi Nzegwu
Foreword by: Laura Czerniewicz
South Africa: African Minds, 2023
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928502708
This book focuses on digital approaches to capacity development, reflecting the greater interest in how digital tools and platforms can be used for capacity development in the ‘Global South’. While Covid-19 demonstrated some of the benefits of online learning, the widespread, often uncritical adoption of online tools driven by necessity has left many with an experience of ‘emergency online learning’. This book aims to assist in the design of technology-enhanced capacity development by sharing evidence of practices that are principled rather than rushed; inclusive rather than creating new digital divides.
Who Counts? Ghanaian Academic Publishing and Global Science
Author: David Mills
Author: Patricia Kingori
Author: Abigail Branford
Author: Samuel T. Chatio
Author: Natasha Robinson
Author: Paulina Tindana
South Africa: African Minds, 2023
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928502647
Since the 1990s, global academic publishing has been transformed by digitisation, consolidation and the rise of the internet. The data produced by commercially owned citation indexes increasingly defines legitimate academic knowledge. Publication in prestigious ‘high impact’ journals can be traded for academic promotion, tenure and job-security. African researchers and publishers labour in the shadows of a global knowledge system dominated by ‘Northern’ journals and by global publishing conglomerates. This book goes beyond the numbers. It tells the story of how the Ghanaian academy is being transformed by this bibliometric economy. It offers a rich account of the voices and perspectives of Ghanaian academics and African journal publishers. How, where and when are Ghana’s researchers disseminating their work, and what do these experiences reveal about an unequal global science system? Is there pressure to publish in ‘reputable’ international journals, what role do supervisors, collaborators and mentors play, and how do academics manage in conditions of scarcity? Putting the insights of more than 40 Ghanaian academics into dialogue with journal editors and publishers from across the continent, the book highlights creative responses, along with the emergence of new regional research ecosystems. This is an important Africa-centred analysis of Anglophone academic publishing on the continent and its relationship to global science.
December 2022
Reframing Africa? Reflections on Modernity and the Moving Image
Editor: Cynthia Kros
Editor: Reece Auguiste
Editor: Pervaiz Khan
South Africa: African Minds, 2022
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928502678
This book takes readers on a series of stimulating intellectual journeys from the late nineteenth century to the contemporary era to explore notions of modernity in the production and reception of the African moving image and of African archival practices. Ideas are presented from multiple historical and contemporary perspectives, while inviting new voices to participate in discussions about the future of the African moving image.
Reframing Africa?makes a plea for the recognition, preservation and repatriation of the African moving image archive, advancing ideas about how it speaks to contemporary Africans, possessed of the power to elucidate their lived experiences and to reorientate perceptions of the past, present and future. On the basis of this wide-ranging appreciation of the archive, the book charts a way forward for African-inflected film studies as well as other programmes in the humanities and social sciences.
Reframing Africa? will appeal to scholars, academics and practitioners across the continent and beyond.
November 2022
On Becoming a Scholar: What Every New Academic Needs to Know
Editor: Jonathan D Jansen
Editor: Daniel Visser
Cape Town: African Minds, 2022
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928502616
On Becoming a Scholar: What Every New Academic Needs to Know
Edited by Jonathan Jansen and Daniel Visser
The origins of On Becoming a Scholar lie in the realisation that there is a need for a vademecum, a handy compendium of ideas, plans and strategies for building a productive and fulfilling academic career to guide the host of prospective academics.
On Becoming a Scholar is geared to help relatively new scholars to construct personal futures and to find their way through the 21st century university. It is intended to be a map, and like any map it does not contain all the contours and details of the landscape, but rather seeks to reveal the important pathways and milestones in the journey to becoming an established academic.
Drawing on highly experienced academics and accomplished professors in their different fields, as well as promising younger academics already on their way, this book cover a concentrated resource of practical wisdom. The topics are broad and, cumulatively, they seek to answer the many questions that experienced mentors encounter every day in their work with new academics.
October 2022
(u)Mzantsi Classics: Dialogues in Decolonisation from Southern Africa
Editor: Samantha Masters
Editor: Imkhita Nzungu
Editor: Grant Parker
South Africa: African Minds, 2022
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928502302
Though Graeco-Roman antiquity (‘classics’) has often been considered the handmaid of colonialism, its various forms have nonetheless endured through many of the continent’s decolonising transitions. Southern Africa is no exception. This book canvasses the variety of forms classics has taken in Zimbabwe, Mozambique and especially South Africa, and even the dynamics of transformation itself.
May 2022
Positioning Diversity in Kenyan Schools: Teaching in the Face of Inequality and Discrimination
Author: Malve von Möllendorff
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2022
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928502333
Education is considered key for societies to achieve greater social cohesion and equality. Yet, schools, as the main providers of formal education, have increasingly come into question concerning their role in manifesting and perpetuating social categorisations, inequalities and discrimination instead of decreasing existing fragmentations and challenging power relations and hierarchies.
As a diverse society, Kenya is faced with power struggles and rivalries between different groups – for instance, along ethnic lines, often constructed deep in colonial history. This affects teaching and learning in school and the result is that Kenya is faced with vast disparities in terms of educational access and success – rendering some social groups marginalised and others favoured.
Positioning Diversity at Kenyan Schools explores the ways in which teachers in Kenyan primary and secondary schools experience and deal with social categorisations and diversity in terms of ethnicity, gender, wealth, culture, religion, etc. in their professional practice and in the current education system. Using critical pedagogy and diversity theory as a lens for positioning diversity in Kenyan schools, the questions that this book sets out to answer are: In what ways do the teachers’ and schools’ practices lead to transformation in terms of more social equality and less discrimination? In what ways do the practices manifest existing group categorisations, hierarchies and discrimination? How can schools and teaching practices in postcolonial Kenya become more inclusive and foster social cohesion and equality?
Out of Place: An Autoethnography of Postcolonial Citizenship
Author: Nuraan Davids
Foreword by: Jonathan D Jansen
Cape Town: African Minds, 2022
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928502364
Out of Place offers an in-depth exploration of Nuraan Davids’ experience as a Muslim ‘coloured’ woman, traversing a post-apartheid space. It centres on and explores a number of themes, which include her challenges not only as a South African citizen, and within her faith community, but as an academic citizen at a historically white university. The book is her story, an autoethnography, her reparation.
By embarking on an auto-ethnography, she not only tries to change the way her story has been told by others, transforms her ‘sense of what it means to live’ (Bhabha, 1994). She is driven by a postcolonial appeal, which insists that if she seeks to imprint her own way of life into the discourses which pervade the world around her, then she can no longer allow herself to be spoken on behalf of or to be subjugated into the hegemonies of others.
The main argument of Out of Place is that Muslim, ‘coloured’ women are subjected to layers of scrutiny and prejudices, which have yet to be confronted. What we know about Muslim ‘coloured’ women has been shaped by preconceived notions of ‘otherness’, and attached to a meta-narrative of ‘oppression and backwardness’. By centring and using her lived experiences, the author takes readers on a journey of what it is like to be seen in terms of race, gender and religion – not only within the public sphere of her professional identities, but within the private sphere of her faith community.
Low-Income Students, Human Development and Higher Education in South Africa: Opportunities, Obstacles and Outcomes
Author: Melanie Walker
Author: Monica McLean
Author: Mikateko Mathebula
Author: Patience Mukwambo
Cape Town: African Minds, 2022
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928502395
This book explores learning outcomes for low-income rural and township youth at five South African universities. The book is framed as a contribution to southern and Africa-centred scholarship, adapting Amartya Sen’s capability approach and a framework of key concepts: capabilities, functionings, context, conversion factors, poverty and agency to investigate opportunities and obstacles to achieved student outcomes. This approach allows a reimagining of ‘inclusive learning outcomes’ to encompass the multi-dimensional value of a university education and a plurality of valued cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes for students from low-income backgrounds whose experiences are strongly shaped by hardship.
Based on capability theorising and student voices, the book proposes for policy and practice a set of contextual higher education capability domains and corresponding functionings orientated to more justice and more equality for each person to have the opportunities to be and to do what they have reason to value. The book concludes that sufficient material resources are necessary to get into university and flourish while there; the benefits of a university education should be rich and multi-dimensional so that they can result in functionings in all areas of life as well as work and future study; the inequalities and exclusion of the labour market and pathways to further study must be addressed by wider economic and social policies for ‘inclusive learning outcomes’ to be meaningful; and that universities ought to be doing more to enable black working-class students to participate and succeed.
Low-Income Students, Human Development and Higher Education in South Africa makes an original contribution to capabilitarian scholarship: conceptually in theorising a South-based multi-dimensional student well-being higher education matrix and a rich reconceptualisation of learning outcomes, as well as empirically by conducting rigorous, longitudinal in-depth mixed-methods research on students’ lives and experiences in higher education in South Africa. The audience for the book includes higher education researchers, international capabilitarian scholars, practitioners and policy-makers.
March 2022
Open Learning as a Means of Advancing Social Justice: Cases in Post-School Education and Training in South Africa
Editor: Tabisa Mayisela
Editor: Shanali C. Govender
Editor: Cheryl Ann Hodgkinson-Williams
South Africa: African Minds, 2022
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928502425
This volume investigates the uptake of ‘open learning’ in South African Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges and higher education institutions. Comprised of 16 studies focused on activities at a range of colleges and universities across the country, these chapters aim to promote a better understanding of open learning practices across the Post-School Education and Training (PSET) sector, including issues such as: recognition of prior learning, access for students with disabilities, work integrated learning, professional development, novel student funding mechanisms, leadership for open educational practices, institutional culture, student support, blended and online learning, flexible learning, online assessment, open educational resource development models and funding, and micro-credentials.
This collection of peer-reviewed chapters contributes to understanding the ways in which South African PSET institutions and educators are interpreting ‘open learning’ as a means of advancing social justice. It includes a historical and contemporary understanding of the economic, cultural and political obstacles facing PSET, drawing on Nancy Fraser’s theory of social justice as ‘participatory parity’ to better understand the ways in which ‘open learning’ may address systemic social injustices in order to allow South African students and educators to thrive.
This volume emerges from research conducted by the Cases on Open Learning (COOL) project, an initiative by the Department of Higher Education and Training in partnership with the Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching (CILT) at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa.
December 2021
Teaching and Learning for Change: Education and Sustainability in South Africa
Editor: Ingrid Schudel
Editor: Zintle Songqwaru
Editor: Sirkka Tshiningayamwe
Editor: Heila Lotz-Sisitka
Cape Town: African Minds, 2021
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928502241
Like many national curricula around the world, South Africa’s curriculum is rich in environment and sustainability content. Despite this, environmental teaching and learning can be challenging for educators. This comes at a time when Sustainable Development Goal 4 via Target 4.7 requires governments to integrate Education for Sustainable Development into national education systems.
Teaching and Learning for Change is an exploration of how teachers and teacher educators engage environment and sustainability content knowledge, methods, and assessment practices – an exposition of quality education processes in support of ecological and social justice and sustainability.
The chapters evolve from a ten-year research programme led out of the DSI/NRF SARChI Chair in Global Change and Social Learning Systems working with national partners in the Fundisa for Change programme and the UNESCO Sustainability Starts with Teachers programme. They show the integration of education for sustainable development in teacher professional development and curricula in schools in South Africa. They reveal how university-based researchers, teachers and teacher educators have made theoretically and contextually reasoned choices about their lives and their teaching in response to calls for a more sustainable world in which education must play a role.
Teaching and Learning for Change will be of interest to education policymakers in government, advisors and educators in educational and environmental departments, NGOs and other institutions. It will also be of interest to teacher educators, teachers and researchers in education more generally, and environment and sustainability education specifically.
August 2021
Democracy and the Discourse on Relevance Within the Academic Profession at Makerere University
Author: Andrea Kronstad Felde
Author: Tor Halvorsen
Author: Anja Myrtveit
Cape Town: African Minds, 2021
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928502272
Democracy and the Discourse of Relevance is set against the backdrop of the spread of neoliberal ideas and reforms since the 1980s, accepting also that these ideas are rooted in a longer history. It focuses on how neoliberalism has worked to transform the university sector and the academic profession. In particular, it examines how understandings of, and control over, what constitutes relevant knowledge have changed.
Taken as a whole, these changes have sought to reorient universities and academics towards economic development in various ways. This includes the installation of strategies for how institutions and academics achieve recognition and status within the academy, the privatisation of educational services and the downgrading of the value of public higher education, as well as a steady shift away from the public funding for universities. Research universities are increasingly adopting a user- and market-oriented model, with an emphasis on meeting corporate demands, the privileging of short-term research, and a strong tendency to view utility, and the potential to sell intellectual property for profit, as primary criteria for determining the relevance of academic knowledge.
June 2021
Transformer l’excellence en recherche: Nouvelles idées des pays du Sud Global
Editor: Erika Kraemer-Mbula
Editor: Robert Tijssen
Editor: Matthew Wallace
Editor: Robert McLean
Cape Town: African Minds, 2021
https://doi.org/10.47622/9782954099477
La science contemporaine est soumise à de fortes pressions. Un mélange puissant d’attentes croissantes, de ressources limitées, de tensions entre la concurrence et la coopération, et le besoin d’un financement fondé sur des données probantes, créent un changement majeur dans la façon dont la science est menée et perçue. Au milieu de cette « tempête parfaite » se trouve l’attrait de « l’excellence de la recherche », un concept qui guide les décisions prises par les universités et les bailleurs de fonds, et définit les stratégies de recherche et les trajectoires de carrière des chercheurs.
Mais qu’est-ce qu’une science « excellente » ? Et comment la reconnaître ? Après des décennies d’enquêtes et de débats, il n’y a toujours pas de réponse satisfaisante. Posons-nous la mauvaise question ? La réalité est-elle plus complexe et « l’excellence scientifique » plus insaisissable que beaucoup ne veulent l’admettre ? Et comment l’excellence devrait-elle être définie dans différentes régions du monde, surtout dans les pays à faible revenu du « Sud Global » où l’on attend de la science qu’elle contribue à résoudre les problèmes de développement urgents, malgré des ressources souvent limitées ? Beaucoup se demandent si le Sud Global importe, avec ou sans consentement, les outils imparfaits d’évaluation de la recherche provenant d’Amérique du Nord et d’Europe, qui ne sont pas adaptés.
Ce livre adopte une vision critique, abordant des questions conceptuelles et des problèmes pratiques qui surgissent inévitablement lorsque « l’excellence » est au centre des systèmes scientifiques. Issu du travail de renforcement des capacités du Science Granting Councils Initiative en Afrique subsaharienne, il s’adresse aux chercheurs, ainsi qu’aux gestionnaires et aux bailleurs de fonds de la recherche du monde entier. Confrontés à des problèmes épineux et à des vérités inconfortables, les chapitres contiennent des idées et des recommandations qui pointent vers de nouvelles solutions – à la fois pour le Sud Global et le Nord Global.
May 2021
The Politics of Housing in (Post-)Colonial Africa: Accommodating Workers & Urban Residents
Editor: Kirsten Rüther
Editor: Martina Barker-Ciganikova
Editor: Daniela Waldburger
Editor: Carl-Philipp Bodenstein
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2021
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110601183
Housing matters, no matter when or where. This volume of collected essays on housing in colonial and postcolonial Africa seeks to elaborate how and why housing is much more than an everyday practice. The politics of housing unfold in disparate dimensions of time, space and agency. Depending on context, they acquire diverse, often ambivalent, meanings. Housing can be a promise, an unfulfilled dream, a tool of self- and class-assertion, a negotiation process, or a means to achieve other ends. This volume analyzes housing in its multifacetedness, be it a lens to offer insights into complex processes that shape societies; be it a tool of empire to exercise control over private relations of inhabitants; or be it a means to create good, obedient and productive citizens. Contributions to this volume range from the field of history, to architecture and urban planning, African studies, linguistics, and literature. The individual case studies home in on specific aspects and dimensions of housing and seek to bring them into dialogue with each other. By doing so, the volume aims to add to the debate on studying urban practices and their significance for current social change.
January 2021
Refractions of the National, the Popular and the Global in African Cities
Editor: Simon Bekker
Editor: Sylvia Croese
Editor: Edgar Pieterse
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2021
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928502159
Case studies of metropolitan cities in nine African countries from Egypt in the north to three in West and Central Africa, two in East Africa and three in Southern Africa make up the empirical foundation of this publication. The interrelated themes addressed in these chapters the national influence on urban development, the popular dynamics that shape urban development and the global currents on urban development make up its framework. All authors and editors are African, as is the publisher. The only exception is Göran Therborn whose recent book, Cities of Power, served as motivation for this volume. Accordingly, the issue common to all case studies is the often conflictual powers that are exercised by national, global and popular forces in the development of these African cities. Rather than locating the case studies in an exclusively African historical context, the focus is on the trajectories of the postcolonial city (with the important exception of Addis Ababa with a non-colonial history that has granted it a special place in African consciousness). These trajectories enable comparisons with those of postcolonial cities on other continents. This, in turn, highlights the fact that Africa today, the least urbanised continent on an increasingly urbanised globe is in the thick of processes of large-scale urban transformation, illustrated in diverse ways by the case studies that make up the foundation of this publication.
September 2020
Situating Open Data: Global Trends in Local Contexts
Editor: Danny Lämmerhirt
Editor: Ana Brandusescu
Editor: Natali a Domagala
Editor: Patrick Enaholo
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2020
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928502128
Open data and its effects on society are always woven into infrastructural legacies, social relations, and the political economy. This raises questions about how our understanding and engagement with open data shifts when we focus on its situated use.
To shed a light on these questions, Situating Open Data provides several empirical accounts of open data practices, the local implementation of global initiatives, and the development of new open data ecosystems. Drawing on case studies in different countries and contexts, the chapters demonstrate the practices and actors involved in open government data initiatives unfolding within different socio-political settings.
The book proposes three recommendations for researchers, policy-makers and practitioners. First, beyond upskilling through data literacy programmes, open data initiatives should be specified through the kinds of data practices and effects they generate. Second, global visions of open data implementation require more studies of the resonances and tensions created in localised initiatives. And third, research into open data ecosystems requires more attention to the histories and legacies of information infrastructures and how these shape who benefits from open data flows.
As such, this volume departs from the framing of data as a resource to be deployed. Instead, it proposes a prism of different data practices in different contexts through which to study the social relations, capacities, infrastructural histories and power structures affecting open data initiatives. It is hoped that the contributions collected in Situating Open Data will spark critical reflection about the way open data is locally practiced and implemented. The contributions should be of interest to open data researchers, advocates, and those in or advising government administrations designing and rolling out effective open data initiatives.
From Memory to Marble Vol 2: The Historical Frieze of the Voortrekker Monument, Part II: The Scenes
Author: Elizabeth Rankin
Author: Rolf Michael Schneider
Cape Town: African Minds, 2020
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110668797
The Voortrekker Monumentality digital archive hosted by Stanford University Libraries is based on the eight-hundred-and-four illustrations from the two-volume book From Memory to Marble: The historical frieze of the Voortrekker Monument. It includes not only images of the monument and the frieze but also many related documents and artworks. The corpus aims to promote studies of controversial monuments, with a focus on visual interpretation.
For the first time the 92-metre frieze of the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria, one of the largest historical narratives in marble, has been made the subject of a book.
The pictorial narrative of the Boer pioneers who conquered South Africa’s interior during the ‘Great Trek’ (1835-52) represents a crucial period of South Africa’s past. Forming the concept of the frieze both reflected on and contributed to the country’s socio-political debates in the 1930s and 1940s when it was made. The frieze is unique in that it provides rare evidence of the complex processes followed in creating a major monument.
Based on unpublished documents, drawings and models, these processes are unfolded step by step, from the earliest discussions of the purpose and content of the frieze through all the stages of its design to its shipping to post-war Italy to be copied into marble and final installation in the Monument. The book examines how visual representation transforms historical memory in what it chooses to recount, and the forms in which it depicts this. It also investigates the active role the Monument played in the development of apartheid, and its place in post-apartheid heritage.
This second volume expands on the first, considering each of the 27 scenes in depth, providing new insights into not only the frieze, but also South Africa’s history.
June 2020
The Artistry of Bheki Mseleku
Author: Andrew Lilley
Cape Town: African Minds, 2020
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928331667
Bheki Mseleku is widely regarded as one of the most gifted, technically accomplished and emotionally expressive jazz musicians to have emerged from South Africa. His individualistic and eclectic sound draws on American, classical and township influences. He had no apparent formal music training and grew up in a poor village on the outskirts of Durban where, at the fairly late age of seventeen, he discovered that he had an innate ability to play. He has become a key inspiration for aspiring young South African jazz musicians and has left an infinite source of knowledge to draw on.
The Artistry of Bheki Mseleku is an in-depth study of the Mseleku’s compositional works and improvisational style. The annotated transcriptions and analysis bring into focus the exquisite skill and artistry that ultimately caught the eye of some of the most celebrated international jazz musicians in the world.
“Despite being entirely self-taught, Mseleku was the most technically sophisticated of jazz musicians, though the abiding experience of hearing him play was one of an unjazzlike simplicity.”
– John Fordham, The Guardian
March 2020
Reflections of South African Student Leaders: 1994 to 2017
Editor: Thierry Luescher
Editor: Denyse Webbstock
Editor: Ntokozo Bhengu
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2020
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928502104
Reflections of South African Student Leaders 1994-2017 brings together the reflections of twelve former SRC leaders from across the landscape of South African universities. Reviews of the previous volume, 1981-2014 suggested that it contributed significantly to a better understanding of the stringent demands of visionary and transformative leadership required by university leaders in the fastchanging and increasingly complex public higher education sector.
This volume is based on comprehensive interviews with former student leaders, each of whom provided a personal account in their own words of their experience in the position of student leadership. The interviewees are from different backgrounds and of diverse political persuasions. The book is important for current and future leaders of higher education institutions as it provides insights into the thinking, aspirations, desires, fears and modus operandi of student leaders. Such insight can contribute to developing and implementing appropriate strategies for achieving meaningful and constructive engagement with current and future student leaders.
February 2020
From Memory to Marble Vol 1: The Historical Frieze of the Voortrekker Monument, Part I: The Frieze
Author: Elizabeth Rankin
Author: Rolf Michael Schneider
Cape Town: African Minds, 2020
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110668780
The Voortrekker Monumentality digital archive hosted by Stanford University Libraries is based on the eight-hundred-and-four illustrations from the two-volume book From Memory to Marble: The historical frieze of the Voortrekker Monument. It includes not only images of the monument and the frieze but also many related documents and artworks. The corpus aims to promote studies of controversial monuments, with a focus on visual interpretation.
For the first time the 92-metre frieze of the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria, one of the largest historical narratives in marble, has been made the subject of a book.
The pictorial narrative of the Boer pioneers who conquered South Africa’s interior during the ‘Great Trek’ (1835-52) represents a crucial period of South Africa’s past. Forming the concept of the frieze both reflected on and contributed to the country’s socio-political debates in the 1930s and 1940s when it was made. The frieze is unique in that it provides rare evidence of the complex processes followed in creating a major monument.
Based on unpublished documents, drawings and models, these processes are unfolded step by step, from the earliest discussions of the purpose and content of the frieze through all the stages of its design to its shipping to post-war Italy to be copied into marble and final installation in the Monument. The book examines how visual representation transforms historical memory in what it chooses to recount, and the forms in which it depicts this. It also investigates the active role the Monument played in the development of apartheid, and its place in post-apartheid heritage.
This second volume expands on the first, considering each of the 27 scenes in depth, providing new insights into not only the frieze, but also South Africa’s history.
January 2020
Transforming Research Excellence: New Ideas from the Global South
Editor: Erika Kraemer-Mbula
Editor: Robert Tijssen
Editor: Matthew Wallace
Editor: Robert McLean
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2020
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928502067
Modern-day science is under great pressure. A potent mix of increasing expectations, limited resources, tensions between competition and cooperation, and the need for evidence-based funding is creating major change in how science is conducted and perceived. Amidst this ‘perfect storm’ is the allure of ‘research excellence’, a concept that drives decisions made by universities and funders, and defines scientists’ research strategies and career trajectories. But what is ‘excellent’ science? And how to recognise it? After decades of inquiry and debate there is still no satisfactory answer. Are we asking the wrong question? Is reality more complex, and ‘excellence in science’ more elusive, than many are willing to admit? And how should excellence be defined in different parts of the world, particularly in lower-income countries of the ‘Global South’ where science is expected to contribute to pressing development issues, despite often scarce resources? Many wonder whether the Global South is importing, with or without consenting, the flawed tools for research evaluation from North America and Europe that are not fit for purpose. This book takes a critical view of these issues, touching on conceptual issues and practical problems that inevitably emerge when ‘excellence’ is at the center of science systems. Emerging from the capacity-building work of the Science Granting Councils Initiative in sub-Saharan Africa, it speaks to scholars, as well as to managers and funders of research around the world. Confronting sticky problems and uncomfortable truths, the chapters contain insights and recommendations that point towards new solutions – both for the Global South and the Global North.
November 2019
Science Communication in South Africa: Reflections on Current Issues
Editor: Peter Weingart
Editor: Marina Joubert
Editor: Bankole Falade
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2019
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928502036
Why do we need to communicate science? Is science, with its highly specialised language and its arcane methods, too distant to be understood by the public? Is it really possible for citizens to participate meaningfully in scientific research projects and debate? Should scientists be mandated to engage with the public to facilitate better understanding of science? How can they best communicate their special knowledge to be intelligible? These and a plethora of related questions are being raised by researchers and politicians alike as they have become convinced that science and society need to draw nearer to one another. Once the persuasion took hold that science should open up to the public and these questions were raised, it became clear that coming up with satisfactory answers would be a complex challenge. The inaccessibility of scientific language and methods, due to ever increasing specialisation, is at the base of its very success. Thus, translating specialised knowledge to become understandable, interesting and relevant to various publics creates particular perils. This is exacerbated by the ongoing disruption of the public discourse through the digitisation of communication platforms. For example, the availability of medical knowledge on the internet and the immense opportunities to inform oneself about health risks via social media are undermined by the manipulable nature of this technology that does not allow its users to distinguish between credible content and misinformation. In countries around the world, scientists, policy-makers and the public have high hopes for science communication: that it may elevate its populations educationally, that it may raise the level of sound decision-making for people in their daily lives, and that it may contribute to innovation and economic well-being. This collection of current reflections gives an insight into the issues that have to be addressed by research to reach these noble goals, for South Africa and by South Africans in particular.
October 2019
Sharing Knowledge, Transforming Societies: The Norhed Programme 2013-2020
Editor: Tor Halvorsen
Editor: Kristin Orgeret
Editor: Roy Krøvel
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2019
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928502005
In June 2016, the Norwegian Programme for Capacity Development in Higher Education and Research for Development (Norhed) hosted a conference on the theme of ‘knowledge for development’ in an attempt to shift the focus of the programme towards its academic content. This book follows up on that event. The conference highlighted the usefulness of presenting the value of Norhed’s different projects to the world, showing how they improve knowledge and expand access to it through co-operation. A wish for more meta-knowledge was also expressed and this gives rise to the following questions: Is this way of co-operating contributing to the growth of independent post-colonial knowledge production in the South, based on analyses of local data and experiences in ways that are relevant to our shared future? Does the growth of academic independence, as well as greater equality, and the ability to develop theories different to those imposed by the better-off parts of the world, give rise to deeper understandings and better explanations? Does it, at least, spread the ability to translate existing methodologies in ways that add meaning to observations of local context and data, and thus enhance the relevance and influence of the academic profession locally and internationally? This book, in its varied contributions, does not provide definite answers to these questions but it does show that Norhed is a step in the right direction. Norhed is an attempt to fund collaboration within and between higher education institutions. We know that both the uniqueness of this programme, and ideas of how to better utilise the learning and experience emerging from it, call for more elaboration and broader dissemination before we can offer further guidance on how to do things better. This book is a first attempt.
Ubushakashatsi: mu Bumenyi Nyamuntu n’Imibanire y’Abantu
Editor: Evode Mukama
Editor: Laurent Nkusi
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2019
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928331971
Research in developed countries is often considered as a means to pave the way towards sustainable development in different areas of the society including science and technology, the economy, governance and security. Researchers in developing countries rarely have the opportunity to use their indigenous languages to design, plan and conduct research. Nor do they communicate in their indigenous languages to share their insights and learnings from other parts of the world with colleagues or students. Utilising the languages that researchers, students and teachers, policymakers, the community, and others interested in research understand better can help to generate new knowledge embedded in local realities where sustainable development needs to take root. That is why this book is in Kinyarwanda. The authors hope that writing this book in Kinyarwanda will increase research capacity in the humanities and social sciences in Rwanda and in the region. And that it will increase interaction between all key stakeholders in the planning and conducting of research as well as in analysing, monitoring and evaluating the research process and its outputs.
May 2019
The State of Open Data: Histories and Horizons
Editor: Tim Davies
Editor: Mor Rubinstein
Editor: Fernando Perini
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2019
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928331957
Its been ten years since open data first broke onto the global stage. Over the past decade, thousands of programmes and projects around the world have worked to open data and use it to address a myriad of social and economic challenges. Meanwhile, issues related to data rights and privacy have moved to the centre of public and political discourse. As the open data movement enters a new phase in its evolution, shifting to target real-world problems and embed open data thinking into other existing or emerging communities of practice, big questions still remain. How will open data initiatives respond to new concerns about privacy, inclusion, and artificial intelligence? And what can we learn from the last decade in order to deliver impact where it is most needed? The State of Open Data brings together over 60 authors from around the world to address these questions and to take stock of the real progress made to date across sectors and around the world, uncovering the issues that will shape the future of open data in the years to come.
March 2019
African Markets and the Utu-buntu Business Model: A Perspective in Economic Informality in Nairobi
Author: Mary Njeri Kinyanjui
Cape Town: African Minds, 2019
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928331780
The persistence of indigenous African markets in the context of a hostile or neglectful business and policy environment makes them worthy of analysis. An investigation of Afrocentric business ethics is long overdue. Attempting to understand the actions and efforts of informal traders and artisans from their own points of view, and analysing how they organise and get by, allows for viable approaches to be identified to integrate them into global urban models and cultures.
December 2018
Higher Education Pathways: South African Undergraduate Education and the Public Good
Editor: Paul Ashwin
Editor: Jennifer Case
Cape Town: African Minds, 2018
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928331902
In what ways does access to undergraduate education have a transformative impact on people and societies? What conditions are required for this impact to occur? What are the pathways from an undergraduate education to the public good, including inclusive economic development?
These questions have particular resonance in the South African higher education context, which is attempting to tackle the challenges of widening access and improving completion rates in in a system in which the segregations of the apartheid years are still apparent.
Higher education is recognised in core legislation as having a distinctive and crucial role in building post-apartheid society. Undergraduate education is seen as central to addressing skills shortages in South Africa. It is also seen to yield significant social returns, including a consistent positive impact on societal institutions and the development of a range of capabilities that have public, as well as private, benefits.
This book offers comprehensive contemporary evidence that allows for a fresh engagement with these pressing issues.
November 2018
The Next Generation of Scientists in Africa
Author: Catherine Beaudry
Author: Johann Mouton
Author: Heidi Prozesky
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2018
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928331933
Young scientists are a powerful resource for change and sustainable development, as they drive innovation and knowledge creation. However, comparable findings on young scientists in various countries, especially in Africa and developing regions, are generally sparse. Therefore, empirical knowledge on the state of early-career scientists is critical in order to address current challenges faced by those scientists in Africa. This book reports on the main findings of a three-and-a-half-year international project in order to assist its readers in better understanding the African research system in general, and more specifically its young scientists. The first part of the book provides background on the state of science in Africa, and bibliometric findings concerning Africa’s scientific production and networks, for the period 2005 to 2015. The second part of the book combines the findings of a large-scale, quantitative survey and more than 200 qualitative interviews to provide a detailed profile of young scientists and the barriers they face in terms of five aspects of their careers: research output; funding; mobility; collaboration; and mentoring. In each case, field and gender differences are also taken into account. The last part of the book comprises conclusions and recommendations to relevant policy- and decision-makers on desirable changes to current research systems in Africa.
Research Universities in Africa
Author: Nico Cloete
Author: Ian Bunting
Author: Francois van Schalkwyk
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2018
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928331872
From the early 2000s, a new discourse emerged, in Africa and the international donor community, that higher education was important for development in Africa. Within this zeitgeist of converging interests, a range of agencies agreed that a different, collaborative approach to linking higher education to development was necessary. This led to the establishment of the Higher Education Research and Advocacy Network in Africa (Herana) to concentrate on research and advocacy about the possible role and contribution of universities to development in Africa. This book is the final publication to emerge from the Herana project. The project has also published more than 100 articles, chapters, reports, manuals and datasets, and many presentations have been delivered to share insights gained from the work done by Herana. Given its prolific dissemination, it seems reasonable to ask whether this fourth and final publication will offer the reader anything new. This book is certainly different from previous publications in several respects. First, it is the only book to include an analysis of eight African universities based on the full 15 years of empirical data collected by the project. Second, previous books and reports were published mid-project. This book has benefited from an extended gestation period allowing the authors and contributors to reflect on the project without the distractions associated with managing and participating in a large-scale project. For the first time, some of those who have been involved in Herana since its inception have had the opportunity to at least make an attempt to see part of the wood for the trees. Different does not necessarily mean new. An emphasis on the newness of the data and perspectives presented in this book is important because it shows that it is more than a historical record of a donor-funded project. Rather, each chapter in this book brings, to a lesser or greater extent, something new to our understanding of universities, research and development in Africa.
October 2018
Anchored in Place: Rethinking the University and Development in South Africa
Editor: Leslie Bank
Editor: Nico Cloete
Editor: Francois van Schalkwyk
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2018
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928331759
Tensions in South African universities have traditionally centred around equity (particularly access and affordability), historical legacies (such as apartheid and colonialism), and the shape and structure of the higher education system. What has not received sufficient attention, is the contribution of the university to place-based development.
This volume is the first in South Africa to engage seriously with the place-based developmental role of universities. In the international literature and policy there has been an increasing integration of the university with place-based development, especially in cities. This volume weighs in on the debate by drawing attention to the place-based roles and agency of South African universities in their local towns and cities. It acknowledges that universities were given specific development roles in regions, homelands and towns under apartheid, and comments on why sub-national, place-based development has not been a key theme in post-apartheid, higher education planning.
February 2018
Going to University: The Influence of Higher Education on the Lives of Young South Africans
Author: Jennifer Case
Author: Delia Marshall
Author: Sioux McKenna
Author: Disaapele Mogashana
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2018
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928331698
Around the world, more young people than ever before are attending university. Student numbers in South Africa have doubled since democracy and for many families, higher education is a route to a better future for their children. But alongside the overwhelming demand for higher education, questions about its purposes have intensified. Deliberations about the curriculum, culture and costing of public higher education abound from student activists, academics, parents, civil society and policy-makers. We know, from macro research, that South African graduates generally have good employment prospects. But little is known at a detailed level about how young people actually make use of their university experiences to craft their life courses. And even less is known about what happens to those who drop out. This accessible book brings together the rich life stories of 73 young people, six years after they began their university studies. It traces how going to university influences not only their employment options, but also nurtures the agency needed to chart their own way and to engage critically with the world around them. The book offers deep insights into the ways in which public higher education is both a private and public good, and it provides significant conclusions pertinent to anyone who works in and cares about universities.
December 2017
The Social Dynamics of Open Data
Editor: Francois van Schalkwyk
Editor: Stefaan Verhulst
Editor: Gustavo Magalhaes
Editor: Juan Pane
Editor: Johanna Walker
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2017
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928331568
The Social Dynamics of Open Data is a collection of peer reviewed papers presented at the 2nd Open Data Research Symposium (ODRS) held in Madrid, Spain, on 5 October 2016. Research is critical to developing a more rigorous and fine-combed analysis not only of why open data is valuable, but how it is valuable and under what specific conditions. The objective of the Open Data Research Symposium and the subsequent collection of chapters published here is to build such a stronger evidence base. This base is essential to understanding what open datas impacts have been to date, and how positive impacts can be enabled and amplified. Consequently, common to the majority of chapters in this collection is the attempt by the authors to draw on existing scientific theories, and to apply them to open data to better explain the socially embedded dynamics that account for open datas successes and failures in contributing to a more equitable and just society.
Adoption and Impact of OER in the Global South
Editor: Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams
Editor: Patricia Arinto
Cape Town: African Minds, 2017
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928331483
Education in the Global South faces several key interrelated challenges, for which Open Educational Resources (OER) are seen to be part of the solution. These challenges include: unequal access to education; variable quality of educational resources, teaching, and student performance; and increasing cost and concern about the sustainability of education. The Research on Open Educational Resources for Development (ROER4D) project seeks to build on and contribute to the body of research on how OER can help to improve access, enhance quality and reduce the cost of education in the Global South. This volume examines aspects of educator and student adoption of OER and engagement in Open Educational Practices (OEP) in secondary and tertiary education as well as teacher professional development in 21 countries in South America, Sub-Saharan Africa and South and Southeast Asia. The ROER4D studies and syntheses presented here aim to help inform Open Education advocacy, policy, practice and research in developing countries.
North-South Knowledge Networks: Towards Equitable Collaboration Between Academics, Donors and Universities
Editor: Tor Halvorsen
Editor: Jorun Nossum
Cape Town: African Minds, 2017
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928331308
Since the 1990s, internationalisation has become key for institutions wishing to secure funding for higher education and research. For the academic community, this strategic shift has had many consequences. Priorities have changed and been influenced by new ways of thinking about universities, and of measuring their impact in relation to each other and to their social goals. Debates are ongoing and hotly contested.
November 2017
Open Data in Developing Economies: Toward Building an Evidence Base on What Works and How
Author: Stefaan Verhulst
Author: Andrew Young
Cape Town: African Minds, 2017
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928331599
Recent years have witnessed considerable speculation about the potential of open data to bring about wide-scale transformation. The bulk of existing evidence about the impact of open data, however, focuses on high-income countries. Much less is known about open data’s role and value in low- and middle-income countries, and more generally about its possible contributions to economic and social development.
Open Data for Developing Economies features in-depth case studies on how open data is having an impact across the developing world-from an agriculture initiative in Colombia to data-driven healthcare projects in Uganda and South Africa to crisis response in Nepal. The analysis built on these case studies aims to create actionable intelligence regarding: (a) the conditions under which open data is most (and least) effective in development, presented in the form of a Periodic Table of Open Data; (b) strategies to maximize the positive contributions of open data to development; and (c) the means for limiting open data’s harms on developing countries.
October 2017
Knowledge for Justice: Critical Perspectives from Southern African-Nordic Research Partnerships
Editor: Tor Halvorsen
Editor: Hilde Ibsen
Editor: Henri-Count Evans
Editor: Sharon Penderis
Cape Town: African Minds, 2017
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928331636
With the adoption of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement, the purpose of development is being redefined in both social and environmental terms. Despite pushback from conservative forces, change is accelerating in many sectors. To drive this transformation in ways that bring about social, environmental and economic justice at a local, national, regional and global levels, new knowledge and strong cross-regional networks capable of foregrounding different realities, needs and agendas will be essential. In fact, the power of knowledge matters today in ways that humanity has probably never experienced before, placing an emphasis on the roles of research, academics and universities.
September 2017
The Future of Scholarly Publishing: Open Access and the Economics of Digitisation
Editor: Peter Weingart
Editor: Niels Taubert
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2017
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928331537
The formal scientific communication system is currently undergoing significant change. This is due to four developments: the digitisation of formal science communication; the economisation of academic publishing as profit drives many academic publishers and other providers of information; an increase in the self-observation of science by means of publication, citation and utility-based indicators; and the medialisation of science as its observation by the mass media intensifies. Previously, these developments have only been dealt with individually in the literature and by science-policy actors. The Future of Scholarly Publishing documents the materials and results of an interdisciplinary working group commissioned by the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BBAW) to analyse the future of scholarly publishing and to make recommendations on how to respond to the challenges posed by these developments.As per the working groups intention, the focus was mainly on the sciences and humanities in Germany. However, in the course of the work it became clear that the issues discussed by the group are equally relevant for academic publishing in other countries. As such, this book will contribute to the transfer of ideas and perspectives, and allow for mutual learning about the current and future state of scientific publishing in different settings.
July 2017
La Jurisprudence Congolaise en Matière de Crimes de Droit International: Une Analyse des Décisions des Juridictions Militaires Congolaises en Application du Statut de Rome
Author: Jacques B Mbokani
Cape Town: African Minds, 2017
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928331421
En 2004, un tribunal de Mbandaka, dans la province congolaise de l’Equateur, a décidé que le statut de la Cour pénale internationale (CPI) répondait mieux que le code militaire congolais au cas qui lui était soumis. Cette décision a déclenché une avalanche d’autres décisions dans lesquelles, au cours des dix dernières années, les juges militaires à travers le pays ont systématiquement et délibérément écarté le code pénal militaire congolais auquel ils ont préféré les dispositions du Statut de Rome. L’importante jurisprudence née de ce mouvement compte parmi les expériences les plus innovantes d’application du statut de la CPI aux poursuites nationales des crimes graves.
Organes de gestion des élections en Afrique de l’ouest: Une étude comparative de la contribution des commissions électorales au renforcement de la démocratie
Editor: Ismaila Fall
Editor: Mathias Hounkpe
Editor: Adele Jinadu
Editor: Pascal Kambale
Cape Town: African Minds, 2017
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781920489175
Ce rapport est une cartographie exhaustive des commissions électorales dans six pays de la région ouest africaine (Bénin, Cap-Vert, Ghana, Nigeria, Sénégal et Sierra-Léone) dont l’objectif est d’évaluer leur contribution au renforcement de la démocratie participative dans la région. Comme institutions de mise en oeuvre des règles du jeu électoral, les organes de gestion des élections (OGE) ont occupé au cours des deux dernières décennies le centre des discussions et de la pratique sur la question cruciale de la participation effective des citoyens aux affaires publiques de leur pays. Les modes de leur création et les règles de leur fonctionnement effectif n’ont cessé de préoccuper les protagonistes des compétitions électorales et d’occuper le centre des réformes politiques.
L’étude Organes de gestion des élections en Afrique de l’ouest répond donc à un besoin évident d’éclairage sur une institution qui occupe une place de plus en plus centrale dans les processus politiques en Afrique de l’Ouest. Basée sur une recherche documentaire approfondie et des entretiens détaillés menés dans chaque pays, l’étude propose une analyse comparative des OGE qui dégage les ressemblances et dissemblances dans leurs formes comme dans leurs fonctionnements tout en essayant de mettre en exergue les logiques qui fondent leurs succès et leurs limites.
Effectivité des Agences Nationales Anti-Corruption en Afrique de L’ouest: Bénin, Libéria, Niger, Nigéria, Sénégal, Sierra Leone
Editor: Open Society Initiative for West Africa
Cape Town: African Minds, 2017
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928331360
Avec plus de 100 milliards de dollars perdus chaque année, d’après certaines informations, à cause de la corruption et autres pratiques illicites, la lutte contre la corruption en Afrique fait face à d’énormes défis. Cependant, des lois et politiques aux niveaux continental, régional et national ont été promulguées et adoptées par les dirigeants africains. Au nombre de ces initiatives il y a la création d’agences spécialisées mandatées pour lutter contre la corruption au niveau national, ainsi que l’institution aux niveaux régional et continental des mécanismes pour assurer l’harmonisation des normes et l’adoption des meilleures pratiques dans la lutte contre la corruption.
Pourtant, compte tenu de la disparité entre l’apparente impunité dont jouissent les fonctionnaires et la rhétorique anti-corruption des gouvernements de la région, l’efficacité de ces organismes est considérée avec scepticisme.
Cette étude des agences anti-corruption à l’échelle continentale vise à évaluer leur pertinence et leur efficacité en examinant leur indépendance, leurs mandats, les ressources disponibles, l’appropriation nationale, les capacités en leur sein et leur positionnement stratégique.
Ces enquêtes comprennent des recommandations fondées sur des preuves appelant à des institutions plus fortes, plus pertinentes et efficaces qui sont directement alignées sur les cadres régionaux et continentaux de lutte contre la corruption, comme la Convention de l’Union africaine sur la prévention et la lutte contre la corruption, que les six pays étudiés dans ce rapport – Bénin, Libéria, Niger, Nigeria, Sénégal et Sierra Leone – ont tous ratifiée.
April 2017
Election Management Bodies in Southern Africa: Comparative Study of the Electoral Commissions Contribution to Electoral Processes
Editor: Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA)
Cape Town: African Minds, 2017
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928332176
Over the past two decades, Southern African countries have entrenched the use of elections as the only means and medium for electing governments and representative institutions in governance. Electoral Management Bodies (EMBs) are central to the delivery and quality of elections. These institutions are mandated to manage most or all aspects of the electoral process. Informed by diverse factors – the design, mandate, extent of powers and even the number of institutions responsible for electoral matters vary in each country. This study is a collaborative effort between the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA), the Open Society Foundation’s Africa Regional Office (AfRO) and the Electoral Commissions Forum of the Southern African Development Community (ECF-SADC). For each of the 12 countries, the research covered:
Comparative analysis of the legal frameworks the EMBs operate under and of the historical and political contexts they function within
Comparative study of the institutional nature of the EMBs
Assessment of the powers vested in the EMBs in the conduct and management of electoral processes and their role in the drafting of electoral laws, managing electoral operations, certifying and proclaiming electoral results, ensuring that electoral results are credible, and in resolving electoral conflicts
Comparative assessment of the independence of the EMBs with particular reference to funding and their relationships with the executive, political parties, parliament and the judiciary (electoral justice mechanisms)
Findings and recommendations from this pan-African initiative are expected to increase information and knowledge on the strengths, weaknesses and workings of EMBs in sub-Saharan Africa to facilitate peer learning among African election managers, as well as informing policy-makers, legislators, governments and civil society on a progressive reform agenda to strengthen inclusive electoral processes and democratic practice.
Effectiveness of Anti-Corruption Agencies in Southern Africa: Angola, Botswana, DRC, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe
Editor: Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA)
Cape Town: African Minds, 2017
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928332213
With reportedly over USD100 billion lost annually through graft and illicit practices, combatting corruption in Africa has been challenging. However, laws and policies at the continental, regional and national levels have been promulgated and enacted by African leaders. These initiatives have included the establishment of anti-corruption agencies mandated to tackle graft at national level, as well as coordinate bodies at regional and continental levels to ensure the harmonisation of normative standards and the adoption of best practices in the fight against corruption.
Yet, given the disparity between the apparent impunity enjoyed by public servants and the anti-corruption rhetoric of governments in the region, the effectiveness of these agencies is viewed with scepticism. This continent-wide study of anti-corruption agencies aims to gauge their relevance and effectiveness by assessing their independence, mandate, available resources, national ownership, capacities and strategic positioning.
These surveys include evidence-based recommendations calling for stronger, more relevant and effective institutions that are directly aligned to regional and continental anti-corruption frameworks, such as the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combatting Corruption (AUCPCC), which the ten countries in this current report – Angola, Botswana, DRC, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe – have all ratified.
October 2016
Cape Town Harmonies: Memory, Humour and Resilience
Author: Armelle Gaulier
Author: Denis-Constant Martin
Cape Town: African Minds, 2016
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928331506
“Cape Town’s public cultures can only be fully appreciated through recognition of its deep and diverse soundscape. We have to listen to what has made and makes a city. The ear is an integral part of the ‘research tools’ one needs to get a sense of any city. We have to listen to the sounds that made and make the expansive ‘mother city’. Various of its constituent parts sound different from each other… There is the sound of the singing men and their choirs (”teams” they are called) in preparation for the longstanding annual Malay choral competitions. The lyrics from the various repertoires they perform are hardly ever written down. There are texts of the hallowed ‘Dutch songs’ but these do not circulate easily and widely. Researchers dream of finding lyrics from decades ago, not to mention a few generations ago - back to the early 19th century. This work by Denis Constant Martin and Armelle Gaulier provides us with a very useful selection of these songs. More than that, it is a critical sociological reflection of the place of these songs and their performers in the context that have given rise to them and sustains their relevance. It is a necessary work and is a very important scholarly intervention about a rather neglected aspect of the history and present production of music in the city.”
- Shamil Jeppie, Associate Professor in the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Cape Town
The Delusion of Knowledge Transfer: The Impact of Foreign Aid Experts on Policy-making in South Africa and Tanzania
Author: Susanne Koch
Author: Peter Weingart
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2016
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928331391
With the rise of the ‘knowledge for development’ paradigm, expert advice has become a prime instrument of foreign aid. At the same time, it has been object of repeated criticism: the chronic failure of ‘technical assistance’ – a notion under which advice is commonly subsumed – has been documented in a host of studies. Nonetheless, international organisations continue to send advisors, promising to increase the ‘effectiveness’ of expert support if their technocratic recommendations are taken up. This book reveals fundamental problems of expert advice in the context of aid that concern issues of power and legitimacy rather than merely flaws of implementation. Based on empirical evidence from South Africa and Tanzania, the authors show that aid-related advisory processes are inevitably obstructed by colliding interests, political pressures and hierarchical relations that impede knowledge transfer and mutual learning. As a result, recipient governments find themselves caught in a perpetual cycle of dependency, continuously advised by experts who convey the shifting paradigms and agendas of their respective donor governments. For young democracies, the persistent presence of external actors is hazardous: ultimately, it poses a threat to the legitimacy of their governments if their policy-making becomes more responsive to foreign demands than to the preferences and needs of their citizens.
June 2016
Change Management in TVET Colleges: Lessons Learnt from the Field of Practice
Editor: André Kraak
Editor: Andrew Paterson
Editor: Kedibone Bok
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2016
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928331339
The Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) college environment is marked by increasingly stark juxtapositions between what needs to be achieved in the post-school education sector and the increasing difficulty of current conditions. The ‘triple challenge’ of poverty, inequality and unemployment weighs heavily on the social, political and economic fabric of the country and expectations are high that the TVET colleges can make a pivotal contribution to counter these challenges. Despite laudable increases in TVET enrolment, the education system needs to work harder to accommodate the weight of demand for post school further education and training (FET) band qualifications from young people not in education, employment or training. At the same time, it is vital to secure adequate quality in TVET programmes which depend so much on the competence and commitment of college lecturers. This collection offers a set of research papers that provide new analytic and empirical material on:
The political economy of TVET types in different countries which, by comparison, illuminate the South African case;
A periodisation of government interventions in the TVET sector over the last three decades;
The unsettled state and status of TVET lecturers in relation to their job requirements and conditions of service;
The halting evolution of collegial relationships between college lecturers towards higher collegiality;
Employer expectations of college graduates and how colleges are responding; and
An analysis of the outcomes of a college improvement intervention in Limpopo and the Eastern Cape.
This book will offer valuable information and insights for decision-makers as well as analysts of institutional change concerning links between education and economic growth, with particular regard to TVET graduates’ employment rates.
May 2016
Election Management Bodies in West Africa: A Comparative Study of the Contribution of Electoral Commissions to the Strengthening of Democracy
Author: Ismaila Fall
Author: Mathias Hounkpe
Author: Adele Jinadu
Author: Pascal Kambale
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2016
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781920489168
This report is an in-depth study of electoral commissions in six countries of West Africa Benin, Cape Verde, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone assessing their contribution in strengthening political participation in the region. As institutions that apply the rules governing elections, electoral management bodies (EMBs) have occupied, over the last two decades, the heart of discussion and practice on the critical question of effective citizen participation in the public affairs of their countries. The way in which they are established and the effectiveness of their operations have continued to preoccupy those who advocate for competitive elections, while reforms to the EMBs have taken centre stage in more general political reforms. Election Management Bodies in West Africa thus responds to the evident need for more knowledge about an institution that occupies a more and more important place in the political process in West Africa. Based on documentary research and detailed interviews in each country, the study provides a comparative analysis which highlights the similarities and differences in the structure and operations of each body, and attempts to establish the reasons for their comparative successes and failures.
One World, Many Knowledges: Regional Experiences and Cross-regional Links in Higher Education
Editor: Tor Halvorsen
Editor: Peter Vale
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2016
https://doi.org/10.47622/9780620557894
Various forms of academic co-operation criss-cross the modern university system in a bewildering number of ways, from the open exchange of ideas and knowledge, to the sharing of research results, and frank discussions about research challenges. Embedded in these scholarly networks is the question of whether a global template for the management of both higher education and national research organisations is necessary, and if so, must institutions slavishly follow the high-flown language of the global knowledge society or risk falling behind in the ubiquitous university ranking system? Or are there alternatives that can achieve a better, more ethically inclined, world? Basing their observations on their own experiences, an interesting mix of seasoned scholars and new voices from southern Africa and the Nordic region offer critical perspectives on issues of inter- and cross-regional academic co-operation. Several of the chapters also touch on the evolution of the higher education sector in the two regions. An absorbing and intelligent study, this book will be invaluable for anyone interested in the strategies scholars are using to adapt to the interconnectedness of the modern world. It offers fresh insights into how academics are attempting to protect the spaces in which they can freely and openly debate the challenges they face, while aiming to transform higher education, and foster scholarly collaboration. The Southern African-Nordic Centre (SANORD) is a partnership of higher education institutions from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Botswana, Namibia, Malawi, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. SANORDs primary aim is to promote multilateral research co-operation on matters of importance to the development of both regions. Our activities are based on the values of democracy, equity, and mutually beneficial academic engagement.
Castells in Africa: Universities and Development
Author: Johan Muller
Author: Nico Cloete
Author: Francois van Schalkwyk
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2016
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781920677923
Universities and Development collects the papers produced by Manuel Castells on his visits to South Africa, and publishes them in a single volume for the first time. The book also publishes a series of empirically-based papers which together display the multi-faceted and far-sighted scope of his theoretical framework, and its fecundity for fine-grained, detailed empirical investigations on universities and development in Africa. Castells, in his afterword to this book, always looking forward, assesses the role of the university in the wake of the upheavals to the global economic order. He decides the universities function not only remains, but is more important than ever. This book will serve as an introduction to the relevance of his work for higher education in Africa for postgraduate students, reflective practitioners and researchers.
Moçambique Como Lugar de Interrogação: A Modernidade em Elísio Macamo e Severino Ngoenha
Author: Paula Sophia Branco de Lima
Cape Town: African Minds, 2016
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928331278
Moçambique como lugar de interrogação: a modernidade em Elísio Macamo e Severino Ngoenha é uma tentativa de procurar respostas para algumas questões que se apresentam quando pensamos dentro do escopo da ciência moderna a partir das periferias globais. Como fazer ciência sociais ignorando a historicidade destas disciplinas e os sentidos que incorporaram desde o seu surgimento e ao longo do processo de exploração colonial? O livro não pretende negar a possibilidade de desenvolvermos ciência de forma crítica a partir dos nossos lugares de fala ou tampouco negar a importância desta produção em nossos contextos. Pelo contrário, nos desafia a refletir sobre caminhos para esse pensar crítico e assume que do nosso lugar de fala, é fulcral que comecemos por interrogar alguns pressuspostos. Por isso, o nosso lugar é um excelente lugar para levantar velhos e novos questionamentos. O conceito de modernidade é exemplar para o tensionamento destas questões, porque traz à tona a dicotomia que historicamente separou colonizadores e colonizados, que é a dicotomia civilizado-selvagem, moderno-tradicional. Por detrás dele está a negociação da nossa igualdade. Refletí-lo, por isso, é uma forma de desconstruir roupagens que nunca nos couberam. O passeio através das obras de Elísio Macamo e Severino Ngoenha, autores de grande importância no pensamento social moçambicano, é uma forma de buscar algumas respostas para estas questões.
A perspicácia e fecundidade com as quais os autores se debruçam sobre a complexa relação que o continente africano estabelece com a modernidade é uma bela porta de entrada para refletirmos sobre o nosso lugar numa rede mais ampla de produção de conhecimento. Moçambique como lugar de interrogação: a modernidade em Elísio Macamo e Severino Ngoenha não é de forma alguma conclusivo, é uma busca. Mergulhar no pensamento destes autores é um convite para pensarmos nossos horizontes.
March 2016
Student Politics in Africa: Representation and Activism
Editor: Thierry Luescher
Editor: Manja Klemencic
Editor: James Otieno Jowi
Cape Town: African Minds, 2016
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928331223
Student Politics in Africa: Representation and Activism
By Thierry M Luescher, Manja Klemenčič & James Otieno Jowi
The second volume of the African Higher Education Dynamics Series brings together the research of an international network of higher education scholars with interest in higher education and student politics in Africa. Most authors are early career academics who teach and conduct research in universities across the continent and came together for a research project, and related workshops and a symposium on student representation in African higher education governance.
The book includes theoretical chapters on student organising, student activism and representation; chapters on historical and current developments in student politics in Anglophone and Francophone Africa, and in-depth case studies on student representation and activism in a cross-section of universities and countries.
The book provides a unique resource for academics, university leaders and student affairs professionals as well as student leaders and policy-makers in Africa and elsewhere.
Reflections of South African University Leaders: 1981 to 2014
Editor: Council on Higher Education
Cape Town: African Minds, 2016
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928331094
The inspiration for this collection arose in late 2013 in the Council on Higher Education’s (CHE) Monitoring and Evaluation Directorate, the directorate responsible for conducting research on the higher education landscape and monitoring the state of the sector over time. They noted that conditions besetting universities had grown increasingly complex, both globally but more especially locally, and the question arose – how had this altered the challenges to university leadership over the period, say, between the new political dispensation ushered in in 1994 and the second decade of the new millennium? More particularly, how had leaders with a proven track record of visionary and strong leadership during this period faced these challenges? How did they see the main changes that needed dealing with? What challenges did these changes pose and how were they successfully overcome? What did they think, looking back, were the main constituents of successful leadership and management? What wisdom could be distilled for posterity? The Directorate decided to invite a range of vice-chancellors and senior academic leaders who had completed their terms of office to contribute to a project that set out to gather such reflections and compile them into a publication.
February 2016
Election Management Bodies in East Africa: A Comparative Study of the Contribution of Electoral Commissions to the Strengthening of Democracy
Author: Alexander Makulilo
Author: Eugène Ntaganda
Author: Francis Away
Author: Margaret Sekaggya
Author: Patrick Osodo
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2016
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781920677978
The management of elections is increasingly generating impassioned debate in these East African nations - Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. The bodies that manage and conduct elections are, therefore, coming under intense citizen and stakeholder scrutiny for the manner in which they are composed, how they organise and perform their mandates, and the outcomes they achieve. The effectiveness of electoral management bodies (EMBs) has largely been influenced by the impact of political violence on election management reforms in East Africa. Even in countries where EMBs are the products of reforms initiated in the aftermath of violent disputes over elections, they still face enormous challenges in dealing with electoral disputes and anticipating election-related crises. Although changes to constitutions and the laws in these countries have sought to make EMBs independent and, therefore, more inclined to deliver free, fair and credible elections, there are many issues that determine their impartiality and their ability to allow for the aggregation and free expression of the will of the people. These shortcomings negatively impact on democracy. This volume assembles case studies on the capacity of EMBs in these five East African countries to deliver democratic and transparent elections.
January 2016
The Civil Society Guide to Regional Economic Communities in Africa
Author: Morris Odhiambo
Author: Rudy Chitiga
Author: Solomon Ebobrah
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2016
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781920677961
Since 1963, when the African integration project was born, regional Economic Communities (RECs) have been an indispensable part of the continents deeper socioeconomic and political integration. More than half a century later, such regional institutions continue to evolve, keeping pace with an Africa that is transforming itself amid challenges and opportunities. RECs represent a huge potential to be the engines that drive the continents economic growth and development as well as being vehicles through which a sense of a continental community is fostered. It is critical therefore that citizens understand the multi-faceted and bureaucratic operations of regional institutions in order to use them to advance their collective interests.
Effectiveness of Anti-Corruption Agencies in East Africa: Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda
Author: Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2016
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928331148
With reportedly over USD50 billion lost annually through graft and illicit practices, combating corruption in Africa has been challenging. However, laws and policies at the continental, regional and national levels have been promulgated and enacted by African leaders. These initiatives have included the establishment of anti-corruption agencies mandated to tackle graft at national level, as well as coordinate bodies at regional and continental lev Yet, given the disparity between the apparent impunity enjoyed by public servants and the anti-corruption rhetoric of governments in the region, the effectiveness of these agencies is viewed with scepticism. This continent-wide study of anti-corruption agencies aims to gauge their relevance and effectiveness by assessing their independence, mandate, available resources, national ownership, capacities and strategic positioning. These surveys include evidence-based recommendations calling for stronger, more relevant and effective institutions that are directly aligned to regional and continental anti-corruption frameworks, such as the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption (AUCPCC), which the three countries in this current report Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda have all ratified.els to ensure the harmonisation of normative standards and the adoption of best practices in the fight against corruption.
Citizenship Law in Africa: A Comparative Study (3rd edition)
Author: Bronwyn Manby
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2016
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928331087
Few African countries provide for an explicit right to a nationality. Laws and practices governing citizenship effectively leave hundreds of thousands of people in Africa without a country. These stateless Africans can neither vote nor stand for office; they cannot enrol their children in school, travel freely, or own property; they cannot work for the government; they are exposed to human rights abuses. Statelessness exacerbates and underlies tensions in many regions of the continent. Citizenship Law in Africa, a comparative study by two programs of the Open Society Foundations, describes the often arbitrary, discriminatory, and contradictory citizenship laws that exist from state to state and recommends ways that African countries can bring their citizenship laws in line with international rights norms. The report covers topics such as citizenship by descent, citizenship by naturalisation, gender discrimination in citizenship law, dual citizenship, and the right to identity documents and passports. It is essential reading for policymakers, attorneys, and activists.
Doctoral Education in South Africa: Policy, Discourse and Data
Author: Nico Cloete
Author: Johann Mouton
Author: Charles Sheppard
Cape Town: African Minds, 2016
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928331001
Worldwide, in Africa and in South Africa, the importance of the doctorate has increased disproportionately in relation to its share of the overall graduate output over the last decade. This heightened attention has not only been concerned with the traditional role of the PhD, namely the provision of a future supply of academics. Rather, it has focused on the increasingly important role that higher education – particularly high-level skills – is perceived to play in national development and the knowledge economy.
November 2015
Knowledge for a Sustainable World: A Southern African-Nordic contribution
Editor: Tor Halvorsen
Editor: Hilde Ibsen
Editor: Vyvienne M’kumbuzi
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2015
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928331049
The search for answers to the issue of global sustainability has become increasingly urgent. In the context of higher education, many universities and academics are seeking new insights that can shift our dependence on ways of living that rely on the exploitation of so many and the degradation of so much of our planet. This is the vision that drives SANORD and many of the researchers and institutions within its network. Although much of the research is on a relatively small scale, the vision is steadily gaining momentum, forging dynamic collaborations and pathways to new knowledge.The contributors to this book cover a variety of subject areas and offer fresh insights about chronically under-researched parts of the world. Others document and critically reflect on innovative approaches to cross-continental teaching and research collaborations. This book will be of interest to anyone involved in the transformation of higher education or the practicalities of cross-continental and cross-disciplinary academic collaboration. The Southern African-Nordic Centre (SANORD) is a network of higher education institutions from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Botswana, Namibia, Malawi, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Universities in the southern African and Nordic regions that are not yet members are encouraged to join.
October 2015
Boundaries of the Educational Imagination
Author: Wayne Hugo
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2015
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928331018
The educational imagination is the capacity to think critically beyond our located, daily experiences of education. It breaks away from the immediacy of personal understanding by placing education within wider, deeper and longer contexts. Boundaries of the Educational Imagination develops the educational imagination by answering six questions:
What happens when we expand continuously outwards from one school to all the schools of the world?
What happens if we go inside a school and explore how its material equipment has changed over the past 300 years?
What is the smallest educational unit in our brain and how does it allow an almost infinite expansion of knowledge?
What is the highest level of individual development we can teach students to aspire towards?
What role does education play in a world that is producing more and more complex knowledge increasingly quickly?
How do small knowledge elements combine to produce increasingly complex knowledge forms?
May 2015
Twenty Years of Transformation in Gauteng 1994 to 2014: An Independent Review
Editor: Felix Maringe
Editor: Martin Prew
Cape Town: African Minds, 2015
https://doi.org/10.47622/9780621429152
Twenty Years of Education Transformation in Gauteng 1994 to 2014: An Independent Review presents a collection of 15 important essays on different aspects of education in Gauteng since the advent of democracy in 1994. These essays talk to what a provincial education department does and how and why it does these things – whether it be about policy, resourcing or implementing projects. Each essay is written by one or more specialist in the relevant focus area.
The book is written to be accessible to the general reader as well as being informative and an essential resource for the specialist reader. It sheds light on aspects of how a provincial department operates and why and with what consequences certain decisions have been made in education over the last 20 turbulent years, both nationally and provincially.
There has been no attempt to fit the book’s chapters into a particular ideological or educational paradigm, and as a result the reader will find differing views on various aspects of the Gauteng Department of Education’s present and past. We leave the reader to decide to what extent the GDE has fulfilled its educational mandate over the last 20 years.
Leadership and Management: Case Studies in Training in Higher Education in Africa
Editor: Johann Mouton
Editor: Lauren Wildschut
Cape Town: African Minds, 2015
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781920677893
Leadership and Management: Case Studies in Training in Higher Education in Africa
By Johann Mouton and Lauren Wildschut (eds)
There has been a resurgence of interest in training programmes for higher education leaders and management (HELM) at African universities in recent times. Although there have been a few cases of evaluation studies of such programmes in Africa, a more systematic review of the lessons learnt through these programmes has not been done.
This book aims to document and reflect on the learnings from intervention programmes at three African higher education councils. It is clear that university leaders face many leadership and management challenges. This is the starting point of the book. More specific questions that are addressed include:
Have the challenges for leadership in higher education management been documented: Not only the shifts in education but the challenges and how leaders at universities have responded to them?
There has been an increase in the number of interventions but little evidence of lessons learnt. What lessons have we learnt from the three training programmes?
The book commences with an introduction that sets the historical context for this initiative. The remainder of the book is divided into three main parts:
Part One consists of two chapters: A review of African scholarship on university leadership and management and the history and landscape of HELM training in Africa.
Part Two presents the ‘documentation and lessons learnt’ from the three country initiatives.
Part Three consists of two chapters: the first describes in detail the monitoring and evaluation process that ran concurrently with the implementation of the country training programmes; the second reviews the uptake and impact of these programmes.
The following stakeholder groupings will find the book useful: HE councils (especially in Africa) and other bodies that are in the business of designing and implementing interventions; senior leadership and management at African universities; international donor agencies and other agencies; and evaluators and scholars in the field of higher education.
March 2015
Knowledge Production and Contradictory Functions in African Higher Education
Editor: Nico Cloete
Editor: Peter Maassen
Editor: Tracy Bailey
Cape Town: African Minds, 2015
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781920677855
Currently, Africa has more than half of the 20 fastest-growing economies in the world, which has contributed to what has been called the era of ‘Africa Rising’ or a ‘New Africa’. In order to further strengthen socio-economic development, African universities need to improve their ability to produce and apply knowledge in effective and relevant ways. In OECD countries there are several public and private sites for knowledge production, but in Africa the university is the only knowledge institution, and hardly any knowledge is produced outside of the university.
However, the performance of African universities in knowledge production has not been impressive. It has generally been acknowledged by agencies such as the African Observatory for Science, Technology and Innovation and the World Bank, as well as leading development scholars, that African universities are lagging behind the rest of the world in their knowledge production function. There has been only weak empirical evidence on the actual performance of universities, with virtually no cross-institutional and cross-country comparative research on the factors that are responsible for the poor performance of universities in knowledge production across the continent.
The crossroads African universities are facing consist of, on the one hand, a familiar path of relative decoupling between the university and its nation’s socio-economic development and, on the other hand, a path that requires far-reaching changes that could make it possible for the African university to connect much more productively to the main actors in emerging national (and in some cases regional) development and innovation networks. For the latter path to become accessible, these universities and their national authorities need research-rooted information.
December 2014
A Comprehensive Review of Methods for the Channel Allocation Problem
Author: Jayrani Cheenebash
Author: Harry Coomar Shumsher Rughooputh
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2014
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781920677534
The study of the channel allocation problem has received much attention during the last decade. Several techniques such as genetic algorithm, artificial neural network, simulated annealing, tabu search and others have been used. This book is devoted to compiling all the techniques that have been used to solve the channel allocation problem. Each of the methods is described fully in a manner that explains the essential parts of how the techniques are formulated and applied in solving the problem. This textbook will be helpful to students studying communications or researchers as it compiles all the techniques used since this problem was first solved.
October 2014
Higher Education in Portuguese Speaking African Countries
Author: Patrício Langa
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2014
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781920677039
This publication is the result of a baseline study of the state of the higher education systems in the five Portuguese speaking countries in Africa (PALOP): Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and Sao Tome and Principe. The project was undertaken by an African international expert in the field of higher education studies and was fully sponsored and supported by the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA). The report offers a historical overview of the development of higher education in PALOP from colonial times to the present. The main objective of this baseline study is to map the landscape and dynamics of change in the higher education systems of PALOP countries. It focuses on describing the latest developments of trends of expansion, financing, governance and policy reforms closely linked to the development of higher education systems in these countries. Furthermore, the study will facilitate an informed debate and the dissemination of knowledge on the role of higher education for development in Africa.
June 2014
Confronting Exclusion: 2013 Transformation Audit
Editor: Jan Hofmeyr
Cape Town: African Minds, 2014
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781920677428
South Africa has made important political strides over the past two decades. It has created a framework of democratic legislative, executive and judicial institutions that mark a clear break from the apartheid past. In theory, they are inclusive and offer every citizen equal access to constitutionally protected rights. Their capacity to deliver, however, is coming under increasing pressure and, as this happens, citizen confidence in their efficacy is waning.
Much of the pressure, which ultimately may affect their legitimacy in the eyes of ordinary citizens, stems from the desperation and sense of economic exclusion experienced by those who find themselves at the wrong end of South Africa’s grossly unequal society. If this decline in trust persists, the cohesive effects of the country’s democratic institutions will diminish, and instability will become an increasingly common feature of political contestation.
Systemic School Improvement Interventions in South Africa: Some Practical Lessons from Development Practioners
Editor: Godwin Khosa
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2014
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781920677374
Looking at two smaller-scale systemic school improvement projects implemented in selected district circuits in the North West and Eastern Cape by partnerships between government, JET Education Services, and private sector organisations, this book captures and reflects on the experiences of the practitioners involved. The Systemic School Improvement Model developed by JET to address an identified range of interconnected challenges at district, school, classroom and household level, is made up of seven components. In reflecting on what worked and what did not in the implementation of these different components, the different chapters set out some of the practical lessons learnt, which could be used to improve the design and implementation of similar education improvement projects. Many of the lessons in this field that remain under-recorded to date relate to the step-by-step processes followed, the relationship dynamics encountered at different levels of the education system, and the local realities confronting schools and districts in South Africa’s rural areas. Drawing on field data that is often not available to researchers, the book endeavours to address this gap and record these lessons. It is not intended to provide an academic review of the systemic school improvement projects. It is presented rather to offer other development practitioners working to improve the quality of education in South African schools, an understanding of some of the real practical and logistical challenges that arise and how these may be resolved to take further school improvement projects forward at a wider district, provincial and national scale.
Perspectives on Students Affairs
Editor: McGlory Speckman
Editor: Martin Mandew
Foreword by: Ahmed Bawa
Cape Town: African Minds, 2014
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781920677442
The goal of Perspectives on Student Affairs in South Africa is to generate interest in student affairs in South Africa. The papers contained herein are based on best practice, local experience and well-researched international and local theories.
The papers in this book deal with matters pertaining to international and national trends in student affairs: academic development, access and retention, counselling, and material support for students coming from disadvantaged backgrounds. They are linked to national and international developments, as described in the first two papers.
This publication will assist both young and experienced practitioners as they grow into their task of developing the students entrusted to them.
All contributors are South Africans with a great deal of experience in student affairs, and all are committed to the advancement of student affairs in South Africa. The editors are former heads of student affairs portfolios at two leading South African universities.
May 2014
Seeking Impact and Visibility: Scholarly Communication in Southern Africa
Author: Henry Trotter
Author: Catherine Kell
Author: Michelle Willmers
Author: Eve Gray
Author: Thomas King
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2014
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781920677510
African scholarly research is relatively invisible globally because even though research production on the continent is growing in absolute terms, it is falling in comparative terms. In addition, traditional metrics of visibility, such as the Impact Factor, fail to make legible all African scholarly production. Many African universities also do not take a strategic approach to scholarly communication to broaden the reach of their scholars’work. To address this challenge, the Scholarly Communication in Africa Programme (SCAP) was established to help raise the visibility of African scholarship by mapping current research and communication practices in Southern African universities and by recommending and piloting technical and administrative innovations based on open access dissemination principles. To do this, SCAP conducted extensive research in four faculties at the Universities of Botswana, Cape Town, Mauritius and Namibia.
Driving Change: The Story of the South Africa Norway Tertiary Education Development Programme
Editor: Trish Gibbon
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2014
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781920677435
Driving Change tells a story that exemplifies a basic law of physics, known to all the application of a relatively small lever can shift weight, create movement and initiate change far in excess of its own size.
It tells a story about a particular instance of development co-operation, relatively modest in scope and aim that has nonetheless achieved remarkable things and has been held up as an exemplar of its kind.
It does not tell a story of flawless execution and perfectly achieved outcomes: it is instead a narrative that gives some insight into the structural and organisational arrangements, the institutional and individual commitments, and above all, the work, intelligence and passion of its participants, which made the South Africa Norway Tertiary Education Development (SANTED) Programme a noteworthy success.
November 2013
Trading Places: Accessing Land in African Cities
Editor: Mark Napier
Editor: Stephen Berrisford
Editor: Caroline Kihato
Editor: Rod McGaffin
Editor: Lauren Royston
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2013
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781920489991
Trading Places is about urban land markets in African cities. It explores how local practice, land governance and markets interact to shape the ways that people at society’s margins access land to build their livelihoods. The authors argue that the problem is not with markets per se, but in the unequal ways in which market access is structured. They make the case for more equal access to urban land markets, not only for ethical reasons, but because it makes economic sense for growing cities and towns. If we are to have any chance of understanding and intervening in predominantly poor and very unequal African cities, we need to see land and markets differently. New migrants to the city and communities living in slums are as much a part of the real estate market as anyone else; they’re just not registered or officially recognised. This book highlights the land practices of those living on the city’s margins, and explores the nature and character of their participation in the urban land market. It details how the urban poor access, hold and trade land in the city, and how local practices shape the city, and reconfigures how we understand land markets in rapidly urbanising contexts. Rather than developing new policies which aim to supply land and housing formally but with little effect on the scale of the need, it advocates an alternative approach which recognises the local practices that already exist in land access and management. In this way, the agency of the poor is strengthened, and households and communities are better able to integrate into urban economies.
May 2013
The Origins of War in Mozambique: A History of Unity and Division
Author: Sayaka Funada-Classen
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2013
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781920489977
The independence of Mozambique in 1975 and its decolonisation process attracted worldwide attention as a successful example of national unity. Yet, the armed conflict that broke out between the government and the guerrilla force in 1977 lasted for sixteen years and resulted in over a million deaths and several million refugees, placing this concept of national unity into doubt. For nearly twenty years, Sayaka Funada-Classen interviewed people in rural communities in Mozambique. By examining their testimonies, historical documents, previous studies, international and regional politics, and the changes that various interventions under colonialism brought to the traditional social structure, this book demonstrates that the seeds of division had already been planted while the liberation movement was seeking unity in the struggle years. Presenting a comprehensive history of contemporary Mozambique, this book is indispensable for Mozambican scholars. It promises to serve as a landmark study not only for historians and the scholars of African studies but also for those who give serious consideration to the problems of conflict and peace in the world.
Sounding the Cape: Music, Identity and Politics in South Africa
Author: Denis-Constant Martin
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2013
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781920489823
For several centuries Cape Town has accommodated a great variety of musical genres which have usually been associated with specific population groups living in and around the city. Musical styles and genres produced in Cape Town have therefore been assigned an ìidentityî which is first and foremost social. This volume tries to question the relationship established between musical styles and genres, and social –in this case pseudo-racial –identities.
In Sounding the Cape, Denis-Constant Martin recomposes and examines through the theoretical prism of creolisation the history of music in Cape Town, deploying analytical tools borrowed from the most recent studies of identity configurations. He demonstrates that musical creation in the Mother City, and in South Africa, has always been nurtured by contacts, exchanges and innovations whatever the efforts made by racist powers to separate and divide people according to their origin. Musicians interviewed at the dawn of the 21st century confirm that mixture and blending characterise all Cape Town’s musics. They also emphasise the importance of a rhythmic pattern particular to Cape Town, the ghoema beat, whose origins are obviously mixed. The study of music demonstrates that the history of Cape Town, and of South Africa as a whole, undeniably fostered creole societies. Yet, twenty years after the collapse of apartheid, these societies are still divided along lines that combine economic factors and ’racial’categorisations.
Martin concludes that, were music given a greater importance in educational and cultural policies, it could contribute to fighting these divisions and promote the notion of a nation that, in spite of the violence of racism and apartheid, has managed to invent a unique common culture.
August 2012
Public Broadcasting in Africa Series: Nigeria
Author: Akin Akingbulu
Cape Town: African Minds, 2012
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781920489007
This report on the broadcast media in Nigeria finds that liberalisation efforts in the broadcasting sector have only been partially achieved. More than a decade after military rule, the nation still has not managed to enact media legislation that is in line with continental standards, particularly the Declaration on Freedom of Expression in Africa. The report, part of an 11-country survey of broadcast media in Africa, strongly recommends the transformation of the two state broadcasters into a genuine public broadcaster as an independent legal entity with editorial independence and strong safeguards against any interference from the federal government, state governments and other interests.
Towards a People-Driven African Union: Current Obstacles and New Opportunities
Editor: AfriMAP
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2012
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781920051839
This report is the first independent, substantive and public assessment of the progress of the African Union. Towards a People-Driven African Union: Current Obstacles and New Opportunities analyses the preparations of African Union member-states, the AU Commission and civil society organisations for the twice-yearly AU summits. The main finding is that despite some welcome new opportunities for participation, the African Union’s vision of ‘an Africa driven by its own citizens’ remains largely unfulfilled. Detailed recommendations are offered to help deliver on this vision in future. Published by AFRODAD, AfriMAP and Oxfam, this report is endorsed by more than a dozen other organisations in Africa and elsewhere, and is based on interviews with more than 50 representatives of member-states, the AU Commission and civil society organisations in eleven African countries.
Public Broadcasting in Africa Series: Zimbabwe
Author: Sarah Chiumbu
Cape Town: African Minds, 2012
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781920355265
This report is the result of research that started in 2008 with the aim of collecting, collating and writing up information about regulation, ownership, access, performance as well as prospects for public broadcasting reform in Africa. The Zimbabwe report is part of an 11-country survey of African broadcast media, evaluating compliance with the agreements, conventions, charters and declarations regarding media that have been developed at regional and continental levels in Africa.
Public Broadcasting in Africa Series: Uganda
Author: George Lugalambi
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2012
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781920355401
Uganda’s broadcast media landscape has witnessed tremendous growth in recent years. While the public broadcaster remains the dominant national player - in terms of reach - in both radio and television, commercial broadcasters have introduced a substantial level of diversity in the industry. Public broadcasting faces serious competition from the numerous private and independent broadcasters, especially in and around the capital Kampala and major urban centres. In fact, the private/commercial sector clearly dominates the industry in most respects, notably productivity and profitability. The public broadcaster, which enjoys wider geographical coverage, faces the challenge of trying to fulfill a broad mandate with little funding. This makes it difficult for UBC to compete with the more nimble operators in the commercial/private sector. Overall, there appears to be a healthy degree of pluralism and diversity in terms of ownership.
July 2012
Citizenship Law in Africa: A Comparative Study (2nd edition)
Author: Bronwyn Manby
Cape Town: African Minds, 2012
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781936133291
Few African countries provide for an explicit right to a nationality. Laws and practices governing citizenship effectively leave hundreds of thousands of people in Africa without a country. These stateless Africans can neither vote nor stand for office; they cannot enrol their children in school, travel freely, or own property; they cannot work for the government; they are exposed to human rights abuses.
Statelessness exacerbates and underlies tensions in many regions of the continent.
Citizenship Law in Africa, a comparative study by two programs of the Open Society Foundations, describes the often arbitrary, discriminatory, and contradictory citizenship laws that exist from state to state and recommends ways that African countries can bring their citizenship laws in line with international rights norms.
The report covers topics such as citizenship by descent, citizenship by naturalisation, gender discrimination in citizenship law, dual citizenship, and the right to identity documents and passports.
It is essential reading for policymakers, attorneys, and activists.
This second edition includes updates on developments in Kenya, Libya, Namibia, South Africa, Sudan and Zimbabwe, as well as minor corrections to the tables and other additions throughout.
May 2012
Dick Fehnel: Lessons from Graver’s School
Author: Richard Fehnel
Cape Town: African Minds, 2012
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781920355043
Dick Fehnel worked as higher education consultant for World Bank, Ford Foundation and the Human Sciences Research Council. He held the positions of acting representative (1998–1999) and programme officer (1993–2000) for the Ford Foundation, Southern Africa, after which he semi-retired to Portland Oregon, and continued to travel and consult until his death in May 2006.
Hijab: Unveiling Queer Muslim Lives
Author: The Inner Circle
Cape Town: African Minds, 2012
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781920355203
Hijab: Unveiling Queer Muslim Lives is the first known collection of South African Muslim stories relating to Islam and sexual diversity. This anthology shares real life stories of people that have struggled, or may still be struggling, to reconcile their spirituality and their sexuality. These are stories that illustrate the oneness of being and reflect on how some interpretations of the scriptures may alienate others. Although the collection focuses predominantly on Muslim stories, it is universal in its approach in dealing with spirituality rather than religion.
Beyond Memory: Recording the History, Moments and Memories of South African Music
Author: Sello Galane
Cape Town: African Minds, 2012
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781920299286
South Africa possesses one of the richest popular music traditions in the world – from marabi to mbaqanga, from boeremusiek to bubblegum, from kwela to kwaito. Yet the risk that future generations of South Africans will not know their musical roots is very real. Of all the recordings made here since the 1930s, thousands have been lost for ever, for the powers-that-be never deemed them worthy of preservation. And if one peruses the books that exist on South African popular music, one still finds that their authors have on occasion jumped to conclusions that were not as foregone as they had assumed. Yet the fault lies not with them, rather in the fact that there has been precious little documentation in South Africa of who played what, or who recorded what, with whom, and when. This is true of all music-making in this country, though it is most striking in the musics of the black communities.
The University in Africa and Democratic Citizenship: Hothouse or Training Ground?
Author: Thierry Luescher-Mamashela
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2012
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781920355678
Whether and how higher education in Africa contributes to democratisation beyond producing the professionals that are necessary for developing and sustaining a modern political system, remains an unresolved question. This report, then, represents an attempt to address the question of whether there are university specific mechanisms or pathways by which higher education contributes to the development of democratic attitudes and behaviours among students, and how these mechanisms operate and relate to politics both on and off campus. The research contained in this report shows that the potential of a university to act as training ground for democratic citizenship is best realised by supporting students’ exercise of democratic leadership on campus. This, in turn, develops and fosters democratic leadership in civil society. Thus, the university’s response to student political activity, student representation in university governance and other aspects of extra-curricular student life needs to be examined for ways in which African universities can instil and support democratic values and practices. Encouraging and facilitating student leadership in various forms of on-campus political activity and in a range of student organisations emerges as one of the most promising ways in which African universities can act as training grounds for democratic citizenship. The project on which this report is based forms part of a larger study on Higher Education and Democracy in Africa, undertaken by the Higher Education Research and Advocacy Network in Africa (HERANA). HERANA is coordinated by the Centre for Higher Education Transformation in South Africa.
Reflections on Identity in Four African Cities
Editor: Simon Bekker
Editor: Anne Leilde
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2012
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781067253752
Identity has become the watchword of our times. In sub-Saharan Africa, this certainly appears to be true and for particular reasons. Africa is urbanising rapidly, cross-border migration streams are swelling and globalising influences sweep across the continent. Africa is also facing up to the challenge of nurturing emergent democracies in which citizens often feel torn between older traditional and newer national loyalties. Accordingly, collective identities are deeply coloured by recent urban as well as international experience and are squarely located within identity politics where reconciliation is required between state nation-building strategies and sub-national affiliations. They are also fundamentally shaped by the growing inequality and the poverty found on this continent. These themes are explored by an international set of scholars in two South African and two Francophone cities. The relative importance to urban residents of race, class and ethnicity but also of work, space and language are compared in these cities. This volume also includes a chapter investigating the emergence of a continental African identity. A recent report of the Office of the South African President claims that a strong national identity is emerging among its citizens, and that race and ethnicity are waning whilst a class identity is in the ascendance. The evidence and analyses within this volume serve to gauge the extent to which such claims ring true, in what everyone knows is a much more complex and shifting terrain of shared meanings than can ever be captured by such generalisations.
Linking Higher Education and Economic Development: Implications For Africa From Three Successful Systems
Author: Pundy Pillay
Cape Town: African Minds, 2012
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781920355449
Finland, South Korea and the state of North Carolina in the United States are three systems that successfully have harnessed higher education in their economic development initiatives. Common to the success of the all these systems is, amongst others, the link between economic and education planning, quality public schooling, high tertiary participation rates with institutional differentiation, labour market demand, cooperation and networks, and consensus about the importance of higher education for development.
Higher Education Financing in East and Southern Africa
Editor: Pundy Pillay
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2012
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781920355333
This nine-country study of higher education financing in Africa includes three East African states (Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda), five countries in southern Africa (Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia and South Africa), and an Indian Ocean island state (Mauritius). Higher Education Financing in East and Southern Africa explores trends in financing policies, paying particular attention to the nature and extent of public sector funding of higher education, the growth of private financing (including both household financing and the growth of private higher education institutions) and the changing mix of financing instruments that these countries are developing in response to public sector financial constraints. This unique collection of African-country case studies draws attention to the remaining challenges around the financing of higher education in Africa, but also identifies good practices, lessons and common themes.
Wildland Fire Management Handbook for Sub-Sahara Africa
Editor: Johann G. Goldammer
Editor: Cornelis de Ronde
Cape Town: African Minds, 2012
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781928331629
Fire has been used as a land-use tool for controlling the environment since the early evolution of humanity. Fire continues to be used as such by people living in different ecosystems across sub-Saharan Africa. Consequently, the rich biodiversity of tropical and subtropical savannas, grasslands and fire ecosystems is attributed to the regular occurrence and influence of fire. However, wildfires have been harmful to ecosystems, economies and human security. This is due to increasing population pressure as well as increased vulnerability of agricultural and residential lands.
The Wildland Fire Management Handbook provides scientific guidelines for maintaining and stabilising ecosystems and for state-of-the art fire prevention and control. The handbook features contributors from diverse backgrounds in wildland fire science and fire management. It deals with topics ranging from fire behaviour and controlled burning to fire ecology and the effects of burning on Cape fynbos. In addition the Wildland Fire Management Handbook includes fire regimes and fire history in West Africa. Thus, the handbook is groundbreaking in its furthering of sub-Saharan Africa’s capacity for fire management and consequent preservation of the environment. The Wildland Fire Management Handbook is an important resource for strategic sustainable land-use planning, disaster management and land security. The handbook is well suited to the needs of wildland fire management practitioners, scientists, academics, and students of universities and technical schools. Thus, environmental consultants, conservationists, ecologists and those dealing with wildland fire disaster prevention, preparedness and mitigation will be interested in the book.
Some Developments in Research in Science and Mathematics in Sub-Saharan Africa
Editor: Lorna Holtman
Editor: Cyril Julie
Editor: Øyvind Mikalsen
Editor: David Mtetwa
Editor: Meshach Ogunniyi
Cape Town: African Minds, 2012
https://doi.org/10.47622/9781920299293
Much attention in late-developing countries is given to providing access to studies which allow school leavers to enter science and technology-related careers. These programmes are driven by the belief that graduates will then substantially contribute to the developmental needs of their countries. But is providing access to institutions enough? Students in developing countries often come from school environments lacking in resources – human, physical and financial. This book, in a number of chapters, reviews research related to the crucial dimension of epistemological access to the disciplines of import, which students need as much as institutional access in order to improve their chances of success.
Social Constructions of Gender-Based Violence in African Countries
Editor: Tinuade Adekunbi Ojo
Editor: Tanusha Raniga
Editor: Samson Sambian Konlan
https://doi.org/10.47622/9780639891309
Based on rich, contextual analysis from South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kenya and Ethiopia, Social Constructions of Gender-Based Violence in African Countries offers an exploration of gender-based violence that moves beyond definition to examine the profound psychological social and economic impacts of GBV, framing it as a critical barrier to human rights and prosperous societies. The analysis is set against the backdrop of international frameworks such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals and Africa Agenda 2063, while critically assessing national policies and legislative milestones within the four focus countries.
A central theme is the critique of governmental failures and the essential role of non-state actors. The book highlights how civil society organisations, aid institutions and research bodies fill critical gaps in service delivery, particularly for the most vulnerable, and provide novel assessments and interventions. It gives specific attention to the exacerbated challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, which revealed severe deficiencies in protection systems and pushed women into greater danger during lockdowns.
Ultimately, Social Constructions of Gender-Based Violence in African Countries is a call for proactive, transformative action. It argues for improved gender justice through increased female representation in leadership, financial empowerment for women and robust, evidence-based policies. It is an indispensable resource for policymakers, human service professionals and scholars across Africa and beyond, providing the insights needed to re-evaluate existing strategies and formulate effective, empowering responses to end gender-based violence.