Spatial processes and politics of renewable energy transition: Land,zones and frictions in South Africa

This paper seeks to make a contribution to on-going debates about how to conceptualise the spatial processes of renewable energy transition. It makes a case for understanding renewable energy transitions as simultaneously spatial and political processes, constitutive of new territories and configuring development pathways. Drawing on a case study of South Africa's Renewable Energy Independent Power Procurement Programme (REI4P), the paper explores the ways in which energy transitions are intrinsically bound up with both the materiality and the historical and contemporary politics of land. It then examines the relationship between energy transitions and territory to conceptualise the ways in which transitions take on an experimental shape in the form of 'zones'. The paper argues that these zones are new territories deploying forms of spatial and political-administrative exceptionality, which allow political and economic actors to exercise authority and commercial power. Two types of zone emerging from South Africa's energy transition exemplify these processes: legally-defined zones for the development of solar and wind energy and zones of socioeconomic development required by REI4P. The paper explores the spatial and political consequences of these strategies and suggests that these may not necessarily translate into conflict and confrontation, but instead produce uneasy co-existences of different political, social and spatial projects and interests, with potential to create new polities.     

南非种族政策取向的重大调整--评沃斯特政府的统治及其政策调整

南非的沃斯特政府在当时的国内外历史背景之下,为应付来自外部和内部的压力、维护白人统治和推进现代化进程,在坚持种族主义统治的前提下,以较为切合实际和讲求灵活性的方式,对南非种族政策的取向作出重大调整,对内着手逐渐放松“次种族隔离”的某些方面;对外则奉行“向外看政策”,其意义不仅旨在暂时缓和种族矛盾和改变南非的孤立地位,而且更重要的是为南非现代化进程中的中心环节———南非民主改革开了先河,作了有意义的尝试,积累了经验和教训,可以说是南非民主改革的组成部分之一。     

Christianity and Political Engagement in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Abstract

This paper focuses specifically on the impact of the Christian churches on the social, cultural and political contexts of South Africa. It considers the political role of the mainline Christian churches and their ecumenical bodies during the apartheid era. In post-apartheid South Africa, the social and political context has changed and the Christian churches relate to this new context in varied ways. The rapid growth and proliferation of Christian churches under forces of globalization to some extent undermines social cohesion and development. The traditional practice of the public gathering, or imbizo, is particularly threatened. This article therefore seeks to address the question of whether Christian institutions in a rapidly globalizing Africa are an asset or liability for promoting identity and belonging, social cohesion, and the development of social capital.     

南非中国新移民面临的困境及其原因探析

本文在实证调查基础上,梳理了南非中国新移民面临的经济和社会问题,并在此基础上探讨了形成这种困境的内外部原因。从表面看来,中国新移民面临的问题直接来自于民族聚集区经济模式下的困境,民族聚集区经济强化了南非中国新移民的自我认同和族群边界,助长了他们普遍具有的＂过客＂心态,也使得他们逐渐面临众多经济、社会问题。然而,实质上,中国新移民的困境也与南非的社会政策大环境息息相关。南非《劳工法》对劳工的过度保护以及社会治安问题、警察腐败等社会大环境,成为中国新移民面临困境的外部原因。     

Making sense of the state: Citizens and state buildings in South Africa

Drawing on the example of South Africa, the article explores how the state, an incoherent and opaque set of ideas, discourses and relationships, is made into a ‘thing’ by its citizens. It describes how citizens encounter the state physically when they see, hear, touch and smell its buildings and how these different sensory engagements generate thoughts and impressions that help them make and unmake the state-thing. The argument is made first theoretically, drawing on work from architecture, cultural geography and urban studies on sensory engagements with buildings; and then empirically through an analysis of South African citizens' accounts of their engagements with state buildings, drawing on focus group discussions in urban centres and observations of state buildings in action. It finds that the state is reified through citizens' ability to think and feel their way from material form to idea, using sight to produce abstractions and metaphors, and the haptic senses to connect to personal memory and fantasy. This layered account of the state, described locally through the analogy of the face-brick, constitutes the making and unmaking of the state-thing that illustrates a deep but ambivalent involvement in it.     

The Neoliberalisation of the Local State in Durban,South Africa

Abstract: There exists a growing literature on the geographical aspects of neoliberalism and neoliberalisation. In this paper I focus on how the neoliberalisation process is articulated at the scale of the local state in Durban, South Africa. I examine the neoliberalisation process through the lens of the water sector. This paper contributes to the body of literature showing how private sector governance techniques are being used in the public sector effecting its neoliberalisation. I show how pricing structures are neoliberal and in turn how they are deployed and contribute to the neoliberalisation of the local state in Durban. I show that accounting strategies, tariff structures, and cost recovery measures are central to the neoliberalisation process in Durban.     

论南非早期华人与印度移民之异同

南非的华人和印度人之间既有相同点,又有不同点。一方面,他们生活在一块相对陌生的土地上,遇到了相同的困难,主要表现在种族歧视、经济困境、社会地位和政治权利等方面。作为“亚洲威胁者”,他们被非洲人视为到南非获取当地低工资的入侵者,而被白人当作贫穷的未开化的苦力。在面临生存危机时,他们总是团结起来与当地政府的种族歧视政策作斗争。另一方面,两个社群之间存在诸多差异。作为大英帝国的子民,印度人移民南非比中国人容易,因此比华人多得多;印度人在南非诸种族集团中处于一个比华人更明确的位置;印度人的宗教传统在社会生活中占有重要的地位。更为重要的是,印度早期移民中的不少知识分子极大地促进了印度人社区的整合,同时有利于印度人为获得自身权利而斗争。     

试析南非种族主义政权的区域“扰乱政策”

20世纪70年代,南非种族主义政权根据国际国内形势的变化制定了总战略。总战略在南部非洲区域层面体现在要将相关国家纳入南非控制的体系,而对拒绝接受控制的国家,南非则采取扰乱政策,对它们进行多种形式、不间断、低烈度的扰乱。南非的扰乱政策给这些国家造成了巨大的损失,也阻碍了整个南部非洲区域的发展。但是,随着种族主义政权的垮台,南非的这一政策最终归于失败。     

Confronting the settler legacy: Indigenisation and transformation in South Africa and Zimbabwe

This article examines attempts to negotiate a perceived residual dominance of settler populations in South Africa and Zimbabwe by means of developmental and cultural policies deemed necessary to restore sovereignty to Africans. Indigenisation has become a preferred strategy for reconstructing post-colonial states in Africa: indigenisation of the economy as part of a Third Chimurenga in Zimbabwe and Black Economic Empowerment in the socio-cultural context of Ubuntu in South Africa. These are issues arising from the regional legacy of contested and uneven transitions to majority rule. Identifying how governments frame the ‘settler problem’, and politicise space in doing so, is crucial for understanding post-colonial politics. Indigenisation in Zimbabwe allows the government to maintain a network of patronage and official rhetoric is highly divisive and exclusivist although couched in terms of reclaiming African values and sovereignty. Revival of Ubuntu as a cultural value system in South Africa facilitates a more positive approach to indigenisation, although Black Economic Empowerment displays elitist tendencies and cultural transformation remains controversial and elusive. The perceived need to anchor policy in socially acceptable (i.e., ostensibly indigenous/traditional) contexts has become a prominent feature of post-colonial politics and is indicative of an indigenous turn in Southern African politics.     

Gendered livelihoods and social change in post-apartheid South Africa

This article employs gendered livelihoods analysis and participatory methods to examine the politics of development among small-scale rooibos tea farmers in a rural coloured area of southwestern South Africa. Differentiating between sources of conflict and cohesion, I discuss how communities navigated resource scarcity, unstable markets, and shifting relations. While patriarchal dynamics informed livelihoods, with males and elders enjoying greater access than females and young adults, women took advantage of relatively fluid female roles to enter into agriculture and commerce. In contrast, rigid male roles and unattainable expectations of manhood isolated men, engendering destructive behaviors among young men in particular. Communities maintained social cohesion through democratic arrangements, and a politics of identification enabled research participants to relate to differential interests. In addition to providing situated and relational insight into the identitarian aspects of rural development, participatory gendered livelihoods analysis offers a critical means for deconstructing power and decolonizing knowledge.     

From Promising Settler to Undesirable Immigrant: The Deportation of British-born Migrants from Mental Hospitals in Interwar Australia and South Africa

This article examines the process by which British-born migrants to Australia and South Africa were deported from mental hospitals in the 1920s and 1930s. It shows how men and women who arrived as permanent settlers could be re-classified as immigrants subject to expulsion. Debates over who was responsible for those who through mental illness or alcoholism were deemed ‘undesirable’ were conducted at the levels of both high diplomacy and petty bureaucracy. Tracing the history of deportation as a means of social engineering within the empire, this article highlights the tension between the transnational ideology of white supremacy and its expression in national terms. Using the case files of those deported from two settler colonial mental hospitals, Callan Park in Sydney and Valkenberg in Cape Town, as well as official deportation paperwork, it also traces how such diplomatic decisions were refracted through the process of attempted implementation. These files show firsthand both the social history of deportation and the mechanisms through which the settler colonial state aimed to shape its population by excluding not only those perceived to be racially other, but also those judged to be racially unfit. The process of determining domicile and of deportation itself reveals much about the frequently precarious circumstances and life histories of these migrants and their often far-flung networks, as well as the ways in which migrants and their families were able to negotiate the regulatory mechanisms of both the state and the asylum.     

Community-based development, non-governmental organizations and social capital in post-apartheid South Africa

Community-based development strategies are gaining in credibility and acceptance in development circles internationally and notably in post-apartheid South Africa. In parallel, the concept of social capital and the role of supportive nongovernmental organizations are receiving attention as key catalytic elements in encouraging and assisting community-based initiatives. In this paper, a well-documented initiative, the Hertzog Agricultural Co-operative in Eastern Cape province, is re-examined after the passage of several years to assess the impact of social capital and the involvement of a particular non-governmental organization in ensuring the sustainability and economic survival of the project. While both elements have proved critical to the project's life-cycle, particularly in recent years, concerns over possible dependency and project sustainability exist.     

Gender,age and the politicisation of space during the time of political violence in KwaZulu-Natal,South Africa

This article examines the way in which the modality of the political violence between Inkatha and the United Democratic Front politicised space in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The article demonstrates how place is actively produced through everyday practices. It shows how the spatiality of the violence shifted – from the body to multiple sites of everyday life such as the school and the household and finally to the neighbourhood. Residents were drawn into the violence differentially on the basis of their gender and age, rather than political beliefs and affiliations. Places were politicised in ways that linked their meaning to the political identity of those found in that space. By presenting a spatialised analysis of the political violence, and illustrating how the production of place articulated with the co-production of political identities, this article makes a novel contribution to the existing literature on political violence in KwaZulu-Natal.     

Participation and Passive Revolution: The Reproduction of Neoliberal Water Governance Mechanisms in Durban,South Africa

Abstract: This article demonstrates that Gramsci's concept of passive revolution can be utilised to help unearth some of the contradictions of participatory development within neoliberal governance systems in the global South. I argue that some approaches to “participation” within neoliberal governance systems can, in part, be understood as moments within a protracted process of passive revolution. The argument is traced through eThekwini municipality's Community Participation Programme and the related extension of Free Basic Water (FBW). This article contributes to existing scholarship by demonstrating how a Gramscian analysis is indispensable to understanding the way in which state–civil society relations are conceived in participatory development strategies and the implications this might have for radical social change. I argue that a Gramscian approach compels us to reconsider current understandings of state–civil society relations so that we might overcome the impasse of passive revolution and move towards a more progressive form of politics.     

The micromammalian fauna from Border Cave,Kwazulu, South Africa

The micromammalian fauna from Border Cave is analysed in terms of community composition and structure. Changes in these aspects are interpreted as indicative of changes in vegetation and climate in the vicinity of the cave during the period of deposition. It would appear that vegetation comprised relatively extensive forest or thick bush and dense grass during wetter phases and fairly open savanna woodland, even open grassland, during drier periods. Variation through time in mean mandibular size in two species of Crocidura (musk shrew) was different both in the two species and from what was expected. It now seems likely that the size change constitutes a response to complex phenomena and not simply to changes in temperature. Comparison with the Boomplaas A sequence indicates that the same general pattern of change is reflected at both sites but that there was a greater amplitude of change at Boomplaas A and that ¹⁸O stage 4 was dry at this site but wet at Border Cave. Evidence for periodic changes in the distribution of various species, and in some cases the mutually exclusive occurrence of ecologically equivalent species, has implications for the zoogeography of the species involved. In particular, the occurrence of Pelomys fallax (creek rat) in the lower half of the sequence is of interest in view of its present distribution 600 + km north of Border Cave.     

The origin of deep subsurface microbial communities in the Witwatersrand Basin, South Africa as deduced from apatite fission track analyses

The first fission track analyses of detrital apatite grains from the subsurface of the Kaapvaal Craton were utilized to delineate the thermal history for the northern margin of the Witwatersrand Basin, South Africa, where evidence for subsurface thermophilic and hyperthermophilic microorganisms have been discovered. Fission track apatite ages for core samples ranged from 21 to 422 Ma. The trend of decreasing age with increasing depth parallels a trend previously reported for fission track data from surface samples collected from the higher altitude centre and lower altitude margins of the Kaapvaal Craton, South Africa. These new fission track ages are older than the surface samples of equivalent elevation, indicating that the uplift history and/or the geothermal gradient of the centre of the Kaapvaal Craton is distinct from that of its margins. Modelling of one sample collected from a depth of 3.7 km records cooling from 120°C at 75 Ma at a rate of approximately 1.4°C m.y.^?1 and reaching present day temperatures at 30 Ma. This modelling result when compared to other apatite fission track dates indicate that this cooling trend followed a 90‐Ma thermotectonic event. The fission track data also indicate that heated fluid migration, which is observed today in this region of the Witwatersrand Basin, was also active in the past in order to explain the greater palaeogeothermal gradient (18 versus 8°C km^?1). The fission track results suggest that at approximately 70 Ma only hyperthermophilic microorganisms could have existed at palaeodepths >3.2 km depth in the Witwatersrand Basin, and that the current meso/thermophilic microbial communities living at or beneath the present depth of 1.7 km in the Witwatersrand Basin must have migrated to their current location since 70 Ma. Any hyperthermophilic microorganisms found at the present depths 1.2–3.7 km could be descendents of subsurface hyperthermophiles that colonized the crust since the early Mesozoic to Palaeozoic eras.     

Film production incentives,employment transformation and domestic expenditure in South Africa: visualizing subsidy effectiveness

In 2004 the South African Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) introduced a Film and Television Production Rebate Programme. In order to qualify for the rebate, certain criteria have to be met including success in job creation and skills development within the industry, alongside a particular focus on the percentage of ‘historically disadvantaged individuals’ employed. This study sets out the issues associated with evaluating success in meeting these various criteria and is, to the best of our knowledge, the first study to apply multi-criteria visualization techniques to inform the evaluation of public subsidy effectiveness. The ‘PROMETHEE’ method is applied and apart from presenting project performance in a visually intuitive manner, the approach helps to clarify patterns of relative success, show where policy objectives are competing, and to identify project exemplars for more efficiently guiding future public support in the sector.     

Engraved ochre from a Middle Stone Age context at Klein Kliphuis in the Western Cape of South Africa

This paper reports on a piece of engraved ochre recovered from a Middle Stone Age context at the rock shelter site of Klein Kliphuis (Western Cape, South Africa). The ochre was associated with a mixed assemblage of Howiesons Poort and post-Howiesons Poort MSA artefacts, suggesting that it is substantially younger than similar finds at Blombos Cave. The implications of the find for arguments concerning the nature of Late Pleistocene behavioural evolution are discussed.