African Minds
This page shows the latest publications (in descending order of publication date) from African Minds.
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Last updated: 2024-04-24 00:00:15
October 2023
African Science Granting Councils: Towards Sustainable Development in Africa
Author: Teboho Moja
Author: Samuel Kehinde Okunade
South Africa: African Minds, 2023
September 2023
Collaboration in Development: A South African Heritage
South Africa: African Minds, 2023
July 2023
Flow: FicSci 01
Editor: Mehita Iqani
Editor: Wamuwi Mbao
South Africa: African Minds, 2023
February 2023
Transformative Innovation in times of Change
Cape Town: African Minds, 2023
January 2023
Digital Technology in Capacity Development: Enabling Learning and Supporting Change
Author: Joanna Wild
Author: Femi Nzegwu
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.
Part 1 sets out the main thinking that informs our overall approach and the frameworks that guide our practice. Part 2 explores a series of assumptions about technology-enhanced learning (TEL) that are common in the literature and against which we tested our data. It brings new evidence to bear on how TEL can be used more effectively as part of learning and capacity strengthening. Part 3 is designed as a practical guide to walk practitioners through the steps to create relevant, inclusive and sustainable digital learning interventions. Part 4 offers a collection of 16 case studies that illustrate how we have put the principles into practice. We have worked to evidence how technology can be leveraged effectively to enhance or strengthen capacities of individuals, teams or systems. We make clear that there are no magic bullets, that online approaches are not simply quicker or cheaper substitutes, and that solutions need to be selected carefully, designed well, and significant time invested if it is to work well.
We hope Digital Technology in Capacity Development will be of interest to researchers and practitioners in a range of institutions, whether they are directly responsible for designing, delivering or evaluating new initiatives or whether they are advising or funding those who do.
Digital Technology
Cape Town: African Minds, 2023
Who Counts
Cape Town: African Minds, 2023
Who Counts? Ghanaian Academic Publishing and Global Science David Mills, Patricia Kingori, Abigail Branford, Samuel T. Chatio, Natasha Robinson and Paulina Tindana
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.
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.
Reframing Africa
Cape Town: African Minds, 2022
Refractions of the National, the Popular and the Global in African Cities By Simon Bekker, Sylvia Croese and Edgar Pieterse
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.
November 2022
On Becoming a Sscholar
Cape Town: African Minds, 2022
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.
June 2022
open Learning Means of Advancing Social Justice
Cape town: African Minds, 2022
Open Learning as a Means of Advancing Social Justice: Cases in Post-School Education and Training in South Africa Edited by Tabisa Mayisela, Shanali C. Govender & Cheryl Ann Hodgkinson-Williams
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
May 2022
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
Positioning Diversity in Kenyan Schools: Teaching in the Face of Inequality and Discrimination
Author: Malve von Möllendorff
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?
Low Income Students
Cape Town: African Minds, 2022
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.
Out of Place
Cape Town: African Minds, 2022
Out of Place: An Autoethnography of Postcolonial Citizenship Nuraan Davids
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.Out of Place: An Autoethnography of Postcolonial Citizenship Nuraan Davids
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.Out of Place: An Autoethnography of Postcolonial Citizenship Nuraan Davids
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.
Positioning Diversity in Kenyan Students
Capr Town: African Minds, 2022
March 2022
Open Learning as a Means of Advancing Social Justice: Cases in Post-School Education and Training in South Africa
Editor: Shanali C. Govender
Editor: Tabisa Mayisela
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
Teaching and Learning for a Change
Cape Town: African Minds, 2021
Teaching and Learning for Change: Education and Sustainability in South Africa Edited by Ingrid Schudel, Zintle Songqwaru, Sirkka Tshiningayamwe and Heila Lotz-Sisitka
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.
July 2021
Understanding Higher Education
Cape Town: African Minds, 2021
Understanding Higher Education: Alternative Perspectives By Chrissie Boughey & Sioux McKenna
Drawing on the South African case, this book looks at shifts in higher education around the world in the last two decades. In South Africa, calls for transformation have been heard in the university since the last days of apartheid. Similar claims for quality higher education to be made available to all have been made across the African continent. In spite of this, inequalities remain and many would argue that these have been exacerbated during the Covid pandemic.
Understanding Higher Education: Alternative Perspectives responds to these calls by arguing for a social account of teaching and learning by contesting dominant understandings of students as ‘decontextualised learners’ premised on the idea that the university is a meritocracy. This book tackles the issue of teaching and learning by looking both within and beyond the classroom. It looks at how higher education policies emerged from the notion of the knowledge economy in the newly democratic South Africa, and how national qualification frameworks and other processes brought the country more closely into conversation with the global order. The effects of this on staffing and curriculum structures are considered alongside a proposition for alternative ways of understanding the role of higher education in society.
May 2021
Higher Education Financing in East and Southern Africa
Editor: Pundy Pillay
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2021
The Politics of Housing in (Post-)Colonial Africa
Editor: Kirsten Rüther
Editor: Martina Barker-Ciganikova
Editor: Daniela Waldburger
Editor: Carl-Philipp Bodenstein
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2021
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
Refractions of the National ,The Popular and Global in African Cities
Cape Town: African Minds, 2021
Refractions of the National, the Popular and the Global in African Cities By Simon Bekker, Sylvia Croese and Edgar Pieterse
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
From Memory to Marble Vol 2
Cape Town: African Minds, 2020
From Memory to Marble: The Historical Frieze of the Voortrekker Monument, Part II: The Scenes By Elizabeth Rankin and Rolf Michael Schneider
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.
From Memory to marble Vol 1
Cape Town: African Minds, 2020
June 2020
The Artistry of Bheki Mseleku
Cape Town: African Minds, 2020
The Artistry of Bheki Mseleku By Andrew Lilley
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
May 2020
The Politic of Housing in Post Colonial Africa
Cape town: African Minds, 2020
The Politics of Housing in (Post-)Colonial Africa: Accommodating Workers & Urban Residents Edited by Kirsten Rüther, Martina Barker-Ciganikova, Daniela Waldburger and Carl-Philipp Bodenstein
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.
Co-published with De Gruyter Oldenbourg.
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
Reflections of South African Leaders
CapeTown: African Minds, 2020
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
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
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
Ubushakashatsi
Cape Town: African Minds, 2019
Ubushakashatsi mu Bumenyi Nyamuntu n’Imibanire y’Abantu By Evode Mukama & Laurent Nkusi (eds)
Mu bihugu byakataje mu majyambere, usanga ubushakashatsi ari itara rimurikira ibikorwa by’amajyambere kandi bukaba n’umuyoboro w’iterambere rirambye haba mu bukungu, ubumenyi n’ikoranabuhanga, imibereho myiza y’abaturage, imiyoborere y’igihugu, umutekano n’ibindi.
Kuba abashakashatsi bo mu bihugu bikiri mu nzira y’amajyamberere badakoresha cyane indimi zabo kavukire mu gukora ubushakashatsi no mu guhererekanya n’abandi ubumenyi bwavumbuwe hirya no hino ku isi bishobora kuba biri ku isonga mu bibangamira iterambere rirambye, ryihuta kandi rigera kuri benshi. Gukoresha ururimi abenegihugu bahuriyeho mu nzego zose – abashakashatsi, abanyeshuri n’abarimu, abafata ibyemezo, abaturage n’abandi bakenera ubushakashatsi cyangwa ibyabuvuyemo – bishobora gutuma hahangwa ubumenyi bwegereye abagenerwabikorwa, bakabugira ubwabo, bakabusangira kandi bakabusigasira. Ngicyo icyatumwe twandika iki gitabo mu Kinyarwanda. Tugamije kuzamura ireme ry’ubushakashatsi mu bumenyi nyamuntu n’imibanire y’abantu. Tugamije kandi kwimakaza ubwumvane hagati y’abafatanyabikorwa bose haba mu gutegura umushinga w’ubushakashatsi, kuwushyira mu bikorwa, gusesengura, kugenzura ndetse no gusuzuma uko ubushakashatsi bwagenze n’umusaruro bwatanze.
Research Methods in the Social Sciences and Humanities 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.
Ubushakashatsi mu Bumenyi Nyamuntu n’Imibanire y’Abantu
Editor: Evode Mukama
Editor: Laurent Nkusi
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2019
May 2019
State of Open Data
Cape Town: African Minds, 2019
State of Open Data Edited by Tim Davies, Stephen B. Walker, Mor Rubinstein and Fernando Perini
It’s 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.
Website Visit the State of Open Data website to read the book online, download individual chapters and to read blog posts about the book.
The State of Open Data: Histories and Horizons
Editor: Tim Davies
Editor: Mor Rubinstein
Editor: Fernando Perini
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2019
December 2018
Higher Education Pathways
Cape Town: African Minds, 2018
November 2018
Research Universities in Africa
Cape Town: African Minds, 2018
The Next Generation of Scientists in Africa
Author: Catherine Beaudry
Author: Johann Mouton
Author: Heidi Prozesky
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2018
Research Universities in Africa
Author: Nico Cloete
Author: Ian Bunting
Author: Francois van Schalkwyk
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2018
October 2018
Anchored in Place: Rethinking the university and development in South Africa
Editor: Nico Cloete
Editor: Francois van Schalkwyk
Editor: Leslie Bank
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2018
February 2018
Going to University: The Influence of Higher Education on the Lives of Young South Africans
Author: Sioux McKenna
Author: Disaapele Mogashana
Author: Jennifer Case
Author: Delia Marshall
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2018
Going to University
Cape Town: African Minds, 2018
Going to University: The Influence of Higher Education on the Lives of Young South Africans By Jennifer M. Case, Delia Marshall, Sioux McKenna, Disaapele Mogashana
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
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
October 2016
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
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
May 2016
Election Management Bodies in West Africa: A comparative study of the contribution of electoral commissions to the strengthen
Author: Ismaila Fall
Author: Mathias Hounkpe
Author: Adele Jinadu
Author: Pascal Kambale
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2016
Election Management Bodies in West Africa
Cape Town: African Minds, 2016
One World Many Knowlegdes
Cape Town: African Minds, 2016
One World, Many Knowledges: Regional experiences and cross-regional links in higher education
Editor: Peter Vale
Editor: Tor Halvorsen
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2016
Castells in Africa: Universities and Development
Author: Nico Cloete
Author: Johan Muller
Author: Francois Van Schalkwyk
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2016
March 2016
Student Politics in Africa
Cape Town: African Minds, 2016
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.
February 2016
Election Management Bodies in East Africa
Author: Alexander Makulilo
Author: Eugène Ntaganda
Author: Francis Away
Author: Margaret Sekaggya
Author: Patrick Osodo
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2016
Election Management Bodies in East Africa
Cape Town: African Minds, 2016
January 2016
Citizenship Law in Africa: A Comparative Study
Author: Bronwyn Manby
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 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
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
Doctoral Education in South Africa
Cape Town: African Minds, 2016
Doctoral Educationi South Africa
Cape Town: African Minds, 2016
Doctoral Education in South Africa By Nico Cloete, Johann Mouton & Charles Sheppard
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.
This book is unique in the area of research into doctoral studies because it draws on a large number of studies conducted by the Centre of Higher Education Trust (CHET) and the Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology (CREST) over the past decade. In addition to these historical studies, new quantitative and qualitative research was undertaken to produce the evidence base for the anbalyses presented in the book. The studies focused on a range of issues related to the growth, efficiency, quality and transformation of doctoral education, doctoral supervision, doctoral tracer studies as well as drawing on studies from the rest of Africa and the world.
The book makes recommendations about strengthening traditional doctoral education, and proposes a paradigm shift. It concludes by raising three policy issues: reaching the National Development Plan 2030 target of 5 000 graduates per annum, South Africa as a PhD hub for Africa and differentiation among different groups of doctorate-producing institutions.
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
October 2015
Boundaries of the Educational Imagination
Author: Wayne Hugo
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2015
May 2015
Twenty Years of Transformation
Cape Town: African Minds, 2015
Twenty Years of Education Transformation in Gauteng 1994 to 2014 By Felix Maringe and Martin Prew (eds)
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.
Leadeship and Management
Cape Town: African Minds, 2015
October 2014
Higher Education in Portuguese Speaking African Countries
Author: Patrício Langa
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2014
June 2014
Perspective of Students Affairs
Cape Town: African Minds, 2014
Perspectives on Student Affairs By M Speckman & M Mandew (eds)
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.
Systemic School Improvement Intervention
Cape Town: African Minds, 2014
Systemic School Improvement Interventions in South Africa: Some Practical Lessons from Development Practitioners By Godwin Khosa (ed.)
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 the 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.
Systemic School Improvement Interventions in South Africa: Some Practical Lessons from Development Practioners
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2014
May 2014
Driving Change: The Story of the South Africa Norway Tertiary Education Development Programme
Editor: Trish Gibbon
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2014
Driving Change
Cape Town: African Minds, 2014
Driving Change: The Story of the South Africa Norway Tertiary Education Development Programme By Trish Gibbon (ed.)
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.
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
Seeking Impact And Visibility
Cape Town: African Minds, 2014
Seeking Impact and Visibility: Scholarly Communication in Southern Africa By Henry Trotter, Catherine Kell, Michelle Willmers, Eve Gray and Thomas King
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. SCAP found that scholars:
carry heavy teaching and administrative loads which hinder their research productivity remain unconvinced by open access dissemination find it easier to collaborate with scholars in the global North than in the rest of Africa rarely communicate their research with government engage in small, locally-based research projects that are either unfunded or funded by their universities produce outputs that are often interpretive, derivative or applied due, in part, to institutional rewards structures and funding challenges do not utilise social media technologies to disseminate their work or seek new collaborative opportunities. All of these factors impact Africa’s research in/visibility at a time when scholarly communication is going through dramatic technical,legal, social and ethical changes.
Seeking Impact and Visibility shares the results of SCAP’s research and advocacy efforts. It not only analyses these four universities’ scholarly communication ecosystems, but illuminates the opportunities available for raising the visibility of their scholarship. It concludes with a series of recommendations that would enhance the communicative and developmental potential of African research.
This study will be of interest for scholars of African higher education,academically-linked civil society organisations, educationally affiliated government personnel and university researchers and managers.
November 2013
Trading Places: Accessing land in African cities
Author: Mark Napier
Author: Stephen Berrisford
Author: Caroline Kihato
Author: Rod McGaffin
Author: Lauren Royston
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2013
October 2013
Trading Places
Cape Town: African Minds, 2013
Trading Places: Accessing Land in African Cities By Mark Napier, Stephen Berrisford, Caroline Wanjiku Kihato, Rod McGaffin and Lauren Royston
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.
Trading Places 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
Origins of War in Mozambique
Cape Town: African Minds, 2013
The Origins of War in Mozambique: A History of Unity and Division
Author: Sayaka Funada-Classen
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2013
Sounding the Cape
Cape Town: African Minds, 2013
Sounding the Cape: Music, Identity and Politics in South Africa By Denis-Constant Martin
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 “identity” 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 made possible by exchanges, 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.
Sounding the Cape: Music, Identity and Politics in South Africa
Author: Denis-Constant Martin
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2013
December 2012
Career choices
Cape Town: African Minds, 2012
August 2012
Public Broadcasting in Africa Series: Uganda
Author: George Lugalambi
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2012
Towards a People-Driven African Union: Current Obstacles and New Opportunities
Editor: AfriMAP
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2012
May 2012
Higher Education Financing in East and Southern Africa
Cape Town: African Minds, 2012
Higher Education Financing in East and Southern Africa By Pundy Pillay
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.
The University in Africa and Democratic Citizenship: Hothouse or Training Ground?
Author: Thierry Luescher-Mamashela
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2012
Reflections on Identity in Four African Cities
Cape Town: African Minds, 2012
Wildland Fire Management Handbook
Cape Town: African Minds, 2012
Wildland Fire Management Handbook for Sub-Sahara Africa By JG Goldammer and C De Ronde
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.
Reflections on Identity in Four African Cities
Editor: Simon Bekker
Editor: Anne Leilde
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2012
Educational Challenges in Multilingual Societies
Cape Town: African Minds, 2012
Educational Challenges in Multilingual Societies By Z Desai, M Qorro & B Brock-Utne
This book is the sixth in a series of books from the LOITASA (Language of Instruction in Tanzania and South Africa) project and reflects the work done in the sixth year of the project. This book has its main focus research carried out in South Africa and Tanzania on the language of instruction issue.
University and Economic Development in Africa
Cape Town: African Minds, 2012
Universities and Economic Development in Africa: Key Findings By Nico Cloete, Tracy Bailey, Pundy Pillay, Ian Bunting and Peter Maassen
Universities and economic development in Africa presents the synthesis and includes the key findings of case studies of eight African countries and universities. The analysis and discussion presented in the book draw three main conclusions.
First, there was a lack of clarity and agreement (pact) about a development model and the role of higher education in economic development, at both national and university levels, in all eight cases. There was, however, an increasing awareness, particularly at government level, of the importance of universities in the global context of the knowledge economy.
Second, research production at the eight African universities was not strong enough to enable them to build on their traditional undergraduate teaching roles and make a sustained contribution to development via new knowledge production. A number of the universities had manageable student–staff ratios and adequately qualified staff, but inadequate funds for staff to engage in research. In addition, the incentive regimes did not support knowledge production.
Third, in none of the countries in the sample was there a coordinated effort between government, external stakeholders and the university to systematically strengthen the contribution that the university can make to development. While at each of the universities there were exemplary development projects that connected strongly to external stakeholders and strengthened the academic core, the challenge remains how to increase the number of these projects.
The study on which this book is based forms part of a larger study on higher education and economic development in Africa, undertaken by the Higher Education Research and Advocacy Network in Africa (HERANA). HERANA is coordinated by the Centre for Higher Education Transformation (CHET) in South Africa.
Universities in Africa and Democratic Citizenship
Cape Town: African Minds, 2012
The University in Africa and Democratic Citizenship By Thierry M Luescher-Mamashela with Sam Kiiru, Robert Mattes, Angolwisye Mwollo-ntallima, Njuguna Ng’ethe and Michelle Romo
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 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 following implications for African universities can be derived from the research findings and conclusions:
It is necessary to stimulate a series of dialogues between key stakeholders on student development as a pathway to democratic citizenship development in Africa. In-depth investigations into democratic best practice of student development and student leadership development should be conducted and the findings published in a series of handbooks for use by student development professionals in African universities. Further surveys should be conducted at other African universities to corroborate the findings and conclusions of this study. A study of the role of students and faculty in the current political transitions in West and North Africa (e.g. Egypt, Ivory Coast, South Sudan, Tunisia) should be conducted.
April 2011
Universities and Economic Development in Africa: Pact, academic core and coordination
Author: Pundy Pillay
Author: Nico Cloete
Author: Tracy Bailey
Author: Ian Bunting
Author: Peter Maassen
Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 2011
January 2010
Linking Higher Education & Economic Development
Cape Town: African Minds, 2010
Tertiary education contributes to social and economic development through four major missions: the formation of human capital, the building of knowledge bases (primarily through research and knowledge development), the dissemination and use of knowledge (primarily through interactions with knowledge users) and the .