32 research outputs found

    The grammar of immersion: a social semiotic study of nonfiction cinematic virtual reality

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    Cinematic virtual reality (CVR) is an audio-visual form viewed in a virtual reality headset. Its novelty lies in the way it immerses its audience in highly realistic 360° visual representations. Being camera-based, CVR facilitates many of the practices of conventional filmmaking but fundamentally alters them through its lack of a rectangular frame. As such, CVR has garnered scholarly attention as a ‘frameless’ storytelling medium yet to develop its own language. The form has gained traction with producers of nonfiction who recognize CVR’s capacity to transport audiences to remote social worlds, leading to claims that equate CVR’s immersion with a social and emotional response to its filmed subjects. A strand of CVR scholarship has emerged, grounding nonfiction CVR theoretically and critiquing such deterministic claims. Broadly speaking, these parallel strands of inquiry point to a common concern with CVR’s semiotics; as the meaning potential of the 360° format, and the social aspects of its use in documenting reality. Currently however, there appears to be a lack of systematic analyses that foreground CVR’s semiotics. This study addresses this gap by using social semiotic methods to complement these threads of inquiry, subsuming them into a holistic account of CVR’s semantics. Utilizing systemic functional methods, multimodal discourse analyses were performed on nonfiction CVR texts addressing core research objectives. The first objective is the systematic description of CVR as a semiotic technology, and the configuring of discourse through its novel 360° modality. The CVR spectator is described for their role in the real-time construction of low-level meanings. Higher-level concepts further characterize CVR texts as technologically enabled, virtual sites of social discourse. The second research objective concerns clarifying the implications of CVR for nonfiction practitioners. Nonfiction discourse is conceptualized as the negotiation of semiotic autonomy, independence, and control, between viewing spectator, filmed subject, and CVR author respectively. The third objective concerns the development of an analytical approach tailored specifically for CVR. Extant systems from image, text, film, and action analyses are reflexively applied, appraised, and adapted for use in the study of CVR and new frames are presented to cater for the 360° modality. The findings show CVR to be an inherently logical, contextualizing form, where the spectator has a degree of sense-making autonomy in the construction of representational and social meanings. This semantic autonomy is found to camouflage the deeper textual constructions in what appear as ‘reality experiences’. The repercussions for the CVR producer are the indeterminacy of meanings which are ‘at risk’ in particular ways when conventional framing methods cannot be utilized, and when the spectator is given reflexive agency to make meaningful connections across the 360° image. Systemic functional analytical methods prove flexible enough to be applied to the texts, and open enough for the study to present additional systems and frames for a more fulsome approach to the analysis of CVR

    Limited efficacy of APRIL CAR in patients with multiple myeloma indicate challenges in the use of natural ligands for CAR T-cell therapy

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    BACKGROUND: We used a proliferating ligand (APRIL) to construct a ligand-based third generation chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) able to target two myeloma antigens, B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA) and transmembrane activator and CAML interactor. METHODS: The APRIL CAR was evaluated in a Phase 1 clinical trial (NCT03287804, AUTO2) in patients with relapsed, refractory multiple myeloma. Eleven patients received 13 doses, the first 15×106 CARs, and subsequent patients received 75,225,600 and 900×106 CARs in a 3+3 escalation design. RESULTS: The APRIL CAR was well tolerated. Five (45.5%) patients developed Grade 1 cytokine release syndrome and there was no neurotoxicity. However, responses were only observed in 45.5% patients (1×very good partial response, 3×partial response, 1×minimal response). Exploring the mechanistic basis for poor responses, we then compared the APRIL CAR to two other BCMA CARs in a series of in vitro assays, observing reduced interleukin-2 secretion and lack of sustained tumor control by APRIL CAR regardless of transduction method or co-stimulatory domain. There was also impaired interferon signaling of APRIL CAR and no evidence of autoactivation. Thus focusing on APRIL itself, we confirmed similar affinity to BCMA and protein stability in comparison to BCMA CAR binders but reduced binding by cell-expressed APRIL to soluble BCMA and reduced avidity to tumor cells. This indicated either suboptimal folding or stability of membrane-bound APRIL attenuating CAR activation. CONCLUSIONS: The APRIL CAR was well tolerated, but the clinical responses observed in AUTO2 were disappointing. Subsequently, when comparing the APRIL CAR to other BCMA CARs, we observed in vitro functional deficiencies due to reduced target binding by cell-expressed ligand

    Competing policy imperatives in Post-Apartheid South Africa: An analysis of the effects and larger significance of ESKOM restructuring on the South African automotive industry, 2005-2014

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    The state has played an indispensable, major role in the industrialisation of South Africa, and its transformation from an economy of agriculture and mining to one based on manufacturing and services by the 1970s. Large state-owned corporations in communications and transportation, finance, industry and power have been key to this process, which also involved an extensive (and racist form of) import substitution industrialisation (ISI) from the 1920s. The 1970s saw a shift towards neoliberal policies, first under the National-Party-led apartheid government and then under the African-National-Congress-led democratic government formed in 1994. Since the 1980s, this restructuring has profoundly affected state-owned enterprises (SOEs), including the monopoly electricity utility ESKOM, and manufacturing industries, such as the automotive sector. This thesis examines the evolution of and interaction between different areas of neoliberal policy, and their evolution over time through a consideration of the relationship between the restructuring of SOEs and manufacturing, with a focus on ESKOM and autotomotives respectively. Relying on interviews with senior officials, policymakers, union leaders and industrialists, as well as primary documents, the study examines the responses of OEMs in South Africa (BMW, Ford, General Motors, Mercedes Benz/Daimler, Nissan, Toyota and Volkswagen) to ESKOM’s actions, and analyses the root of these actions. It argues that while restructuring has been framed by a common framework, policy development and implementation is not coordinated or cohesive. ESKOM, for example, gutted investment in electricity and maintenance generation capacity to become profitable and create space for Independent Power Providers (IPPs) – neoliberal measures for which it was rewarded and lauded. This took place at a time when national policy emphasised the need to grow manufacturing and attract direct investment by creating an investor-friendly climate resting on infrastructure. It also took place when the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) rolled out highly successful plans – also praised and rewarded – to help adjust automotives to open markets; the sector grew much larger than under ISI, while other sectors like textiles collapsed. ESKOM’s measures, however, led to a rapid decline in the capacity and stability of the power system, and directly contradicted the drive to expand and globalise manufacturing, in which automotives was now the leading edge. Corruption in the utility worsened, much of it through subcontracting measures rooted in neoliberal reforms, but this did not cause the basic problems. It is argued that this situation of competing policy imperatives reflects deeper, long-term problems in the South African state, including contradictory policies, uneven capacity and a lack of coordination. For example, there was no coordination between the DTI and stakeholder departments that regulate ESKOM, being the shareholder ministry, the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) and its policy ministry, and the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE). These types of problems did not start postapartheid, and post-1994 reforms have not adequately addressed them. What exists is not a “developmental” state, as policymakers hope, but a fractured state of an intermediate type that combines “developmental” and “predatory” features in a oneparty dominant system in which lines between ruling party and state blur, and state resources are leveraged for elite class formation. Such was the case under apartheid skippered by the NP, with Afrikanerisation, and it continues today post-apartheid under the ANC with BEE. Major reforms are needed, but not just in SOE governance or budgets, as many have suggested. If we are to take the nation forward, the basic design of the state must be reformed. The state needs professionalised, coherent policy-making and implementation, proper coordination of state entities and hard decisions. It should manage high levels of public infrastructure, guarantee political stability and credit ratings, and provide policy certainty and predictability. Without big reforms it will remain a chronic underperformer.Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Humanities, Sociology, 202

    Scanning the European Ecosystem of Distributed Ledger Technologies for Social and Public Good: What, Why, Where, How, and Ways to Move Forward

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    Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs), such as blockchains, are primarily tamper-resistant and time-stamped databases. They allow multiple parties to record, verify and share data on a peer-to-peer basis across a network, in decentralised, synchronised and transparent ways, with limited human intervention and reduced intermediate steps. These technologies are mostly known for business use cases, from cryptocurrencies to asset track and tracing. But there are numerous organisations nowadays searching for alternative ways to harness the potential of DLTs in the pursuit of public and social good, from local to global challenges, and towards more inclusive, cooperative, sustainable, ethical or accountable digital and physical worlds. This Science for Policy report explores the current status of this particular field both theoretically and empirically, in the framework of the project #DLT4Good: Co-creating a European Ecosystem of DLTs for Social and Public Good. Part I offers a conceptual overview of the connections between main features of DLTs and their potential for social and public good goals. Emphasis is placed on different approaches to decentralisation, and on core building blocks of DLTs linked with values such as trust, privacy, self-sovereignty, autonomy, inclusiveness, transparency, openness, or the commons. Part II comprises a scanning of the current European ecosystem of DLT projects with activities in this field. It contains a summarized version of a database published online with 131 projects, and a quantitative review of main trends. It also includes a qualitative assessment of 10 projects selected from the larger sample to showcase this field and its diversity. Part III concludes with six independent position papers and recommendations from experts and advisors of the #DLT4Good project. The main topics addressed range from decentralized governance to collaborative economies, with highlights on issues such as trust, verifiability, transparency, privacy or bottom-up coordination.JRC.I.2-Foresight, Modelling, Behavioural Insights & Design for Polic

    Scanning the European Ecosystem of Distributed Ledger Technologies for Social and Public Good: What, Why, Where, How, and Ways to Move Forward

    Get PDF
    Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs), such as blockchains, are primarily tamper-resistant and time-stamped databases. They allow multiple parties to record, verify and share data on a peer-to-peer basis across a network, in decentralised, synchronised and transparent ways, with limited human intervention and reduced intermediate steps. These technologies are mostly known for business use cases, from cryptocurrencies to asset track and tracing. But there are numerous organisations nowadays searching for alternative ways to harness the potential of DLTs in the pursuit of public and social good, from local to global challenges, and towards more inclusive, cooperative, sustainable, ethical or accountable digital and physical worlds. This Science for Policy report explores the current status of this particular field both theoretically and empirically, in the framework of the project #DLT4Good: Co-creating a European Ecosystem of DLTs for Social and Public Good. Part One offers a conceptual overview of the connections between main features of DLTs and their potential for social and public good goals. Emphasis is placed on different approaches to decentralisation, and on core building blocks of DLTs linked with values such as trust, privacy, self-sovereignty, autonomy, inclusiveness, transparency, openness, or the commons. Part Two comprises a scanning of the current European ecosystem of DLT projects with activities in this field. It contains a summarized version of a database published online with 131 projects, and a quantitative review of main trends. It also includes a qualitative assessment of 10 projects selected from the larger sample to showcase this field and its diversity. Part Three concludes with six independent position papers and recommendations from experts and advisors of the #DLT4Good project. The main topics addressed range from decentralized governance to collaborative economies, with highlights on issues such as trust, verifiability, transparency, privacy or bottom-up coordination

    A select bouquet of leadership theories advancing good governance and business ethics: a conceptual framework

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    How authors and scholars have approached leadership studies – in terms of their thinking, defining and studying – has changed remarkably over time. According to literature, this is predominantly due to greater optimism about the field and greater methodological diversity being employed to better understand complex, embedded phenomena. As a result, there has been a significant rise in the use of qualitative research approaches to the study of leadership. Numerous definitions, classifications, explanations and theories about leadership, exist in the contemporary literature. However, despite the vast array of literature, the challenge of failing leadership persists. Challenges, such as the speed of technological advancements, social, and economic change are ever-present, while the impact of COVID-19 is, as yet, uncertain. Despite these challenges, can companies compete successfully in the marketplaces they operate in while also remaining ethical and engaged with the challenges of the broader business and social environment? To answer this question, this study has undertaken qualitative research on the bouquet of trait, situational and value-based leadership theory, in order to re-assess both established and developing theories. The predominant aim is to describe, explain and analyse available literature in an attempt to ascertain academic guidance on how it might be possible to enable leaders and society to mitigate leadership challenges by proposing a conceptual framework that could support leadership theory and, in so doing, take an academic stance in providing better answers or guidance to the failures currently being experienced. Several authors have noted that leadership makes a difference with resulting impacts on many which implies that to make the world a better place, leadership has two contradictory elements; good and bad. These elements are reflected in today’s connected world where the media, either showers praise on leaders or writes articles deriding their incompetence and abuse of their roles at all levels The proposed conceptual framework of this study endeavours to enable society and leaders, practically and at an individual level, to evaluate leadership issues and link leadership frameworks to their everyday lives and, in so doing, aid in mitigating the challenges being faced.Business ManagementD.B.L

    Exploring the link between poverty and human rights in Africa

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    Poverty remains one of the greatest challenges facing humanity in this century. Despite the fact that the world is blessed with natural and human resources, a significant number of people, particularly in developing countries, still live in abject poverty. Recent developments show that efforts at combating poverty across the globe are yielding positive results as there seems to be a significant decrease in the number of people living in extreme poverty in poor regions. The picture is not all rosy, however, as there remains a great cause for concern as the world’s poorest people still live in developing countries. An estimated 736 million people worldwide – the majority in South Asia and Africa – live in extreme poverty.1 Indeed, half of these people live in five countries, namely, India, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ethiopia and Bangladesh.2 Almost 1,4 billion people are living in extreme poverty.3 The poverty situation in many developing countries, particularly Africa, is exacerbated by famine, conflict, the lack of access to basic services such as health care, water, sanitation and electricity, unemployment and corruption. While the majority of persons living in extreme poverty are found in developing countries, some of them also live in developed countries

    Developing a framework for project status reporting in South African state-owned companies.

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    Doctoral Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.There are two prominent organisations that play a critical role in the everyday life of most South Africans through freight logistics and electricity provision, Transnet State-Owned Company (SOC) and Eskom SOC, respectively. Within these organisations, billions of taxpayers’ Rand are invested into hundreds of capital projects that are frequently delayed. A capital project is a long-term, capital-intensive investment project aimed at building-upon, adding to or improving a capital asset. It is defined by its large scale and exorbitant costs relative to other projects. A project status report summarises the position or condition of a particular project during a stated period of time. It may be published as a single, stand-alone report or as part of a series of distinguishable, identifiable portions forming part of a larger report. During project status reporting, and according to the project management ‘iron triangle’, it is a measure of good governance for stakeholders to be informed of project progress during its lifecycle in terms of cost, schedule, scope, and quality. The key challenge, however, is that this can lead to stakeholders being unaware of various other constraints which affect capital projects executed by these organisations. Literature indicating how this challenge can be overcome is scarce. In developing a holistic framework for project status reporting in South African SOCs as its primary finding, this study suggests that additional project management constraints should be considered during project status reporting. Fifteen themes were identified. Delays in approval processes which can negatively influence all other project management constraints and utilisation of centralised and digitised project management software were exclusively identified during the analysis of primary data. Themes solely identified during the review of secondary data were safety, health and environment; highly regulated disciplines within the project management space. Other themes identified in secondary data were document control which is responsible for the creation, review, modification, storage, issuance, distribution, accessibility, and destruction of project documents, which should be undertaken together with the procurement of project-related goods and services which, if not strategically planned and executed, may stall progress onsite. Appropriately, most themes were present both in the primary and secondary data. These include the project cost management involving a set of processes that will allow the project to be completed within the approved budget. Schedule management details the activities and milestones that comprise the project. Scope definition is a process of developing a comprehensive description of the desired project outcome. Project quality bespeaks a philosophy of adherence to standards. Resources relate to everything that is required to perform project activities or tasks. Risks emanating from within and outside the project need to be understood. Contract lifecycle management, involves legally binding documents between the contractor and client. Together with project reporting and communication, the processes that are required to ensure timely and appropriate planning, collection, creation, distribution, storage, retrieval, control, monitoring, and the ultimate disposition of project information are additional considerations. This framework formalises project status reporting pertaining to Eskom and Transnet SOCs. It nurtures effective communication, a key attribute in project management. It considers a holistic view of project management constraints, to give stakeholders an unparalleled view of all the project management disciplines. It promotes accurate flow of holistic project status information to both internal and external stakeholders, to aid problem-solving and decision-making during the project lifecycle. It advocates the utilisation of enterprise management offices as a means to improve stakeholder feedback. Lastly, it eliminates bureaucratic project management structures as a factor that is capable of undermining project status reporting. The research design is phenomenology and the research approach is qualitative. The general population, target population and accessible population are concepts that were clearly articulated in order to guide the reader in appraising sampling credibility. The techniques used and the outcomes of the research study were then declared and defined. Thereafter, purposive sampling was used to identify a SOC with an accessible population of 20 individuals responsible for project status reporting. Due to the small, manageable size of the accessible population, census sampling was used to maximise data collection points. Ultimately, 16 respondents were interviewed. Data were collected using self-administered, semi-structured interviews. NVivo software was utilised to find relationships, differences and interconnectedness between the themes in the primary and secondary data. This study recommends that Eskom and Transnet SOCs adopt this framework during project status reporting. Future research may want to refine the framework for wider application. Alternatively, future research may want to rank the project management constraints to determine the impact that each has vis-à-vis others

    Vetting as a technique to investigate employment fraud in the City of Johannesburg

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    The research study covers the following topic “Vetting as a Technique to Investigate Employment Fraud in the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan”. The researcher intends to evaluate the current procedures which are used in the process of forensic vetting as employment fraud investigation method in CoJ. Furthermore, to build the ground work for potential future innovation, problem solving, decision making and proper planning of the use of forensic vetting as employment fraud investigation method. The researcher applied the qualitative approach throughout the research because qualitative involves interaction between the researcher and the subject that was identified as a problem that concerned CoJ The researcher had selected ten (10) forensic investigators to partake in this study. The total population to be interviewed and collect data from was considerable and appropriate for evaluating forensic vetting as an employment fraud investigation method. The researcher used purposive sampling to choose the participants for this research. It was found that every individual within an organ of the State must be subjected to the vetting process. It was further found that the institutions in governmental, organs of the State and private spheres must adopt the forensic vetting practice to minimize fraudulent activities in their organizations.Department of Police PracticeM. Tech. (Forensic Investigation

    Neopatrimonialism and state capture : the case of the South African Social Security Agency

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    Thesis (MPhil)--Stellenbosch University, 2019.ENGLISH SUMMARY : Since 2016, when the term first entered South Africa’s political-economic discourse, the colloquial use of the concept “State Capture” has come to be a representative descriptor of a state besieged by corruption. In 2017, a collective of academics formed the State Capacity Research Project (SCRP) and released the Betrayal of the Promise: How South Africa is Being Stolen report (Bhorat, Buthelezi, Chipkin, Duma, Mondi, Peter, Qobo & Swilling, 2017), which was one of the first attempts to provide an academic framework for understanding this phenomenon. Drawing on neopatrimonial school of thought, the report argued, as do I, that State Capture extends beyond being a mere form of “grand corruption”. Building on this framework, this thesis critically examines the theories of state capture and neopatrimonialism, and puts forward a conceptualisation of State Capture as a context-specific phenomenon, encompassing a much broader political project undertaken by the power elite, which results in a unique form of (mis)governance. In July 2018, a follow-up case study was released, titled How One Word Can Change the Game: Case Study of State Capture and the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) (Foley & Swilling, 2018), which was produced from the research undertaken for this thesis. The case study presented in this thesis centres around what is commonly referred to as SASSA-Gate, where in March 2017 a potential national crisis was narrowly averted when the Constitutional Court was forced to extend an already unlawful and invalid contract to ensure the continuation of payment of social grants to some 17 million beneficiaries. The foundation of the crisis is linked to the original invalid contract, which was entered into between SASSA and Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) in 2012, and which has been surrounded in controversy and allegations of corruption ever since. At the centre of the SASSA-Gate crisis (and the main motivation for the awarding of the invalid contract) is the proprietary biometric card technology of CPS. From the research, it emerged that there are potential insights which might be gained by applying the conceptualisation of State Capture to the ever-increasing uncertainties associated with future developmental disruptions, such as those associated with the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). The research was undertaken as both a descriptive and an exploratory qualitative case study and is presented in a dense narrative format. Granular research methodology was adopted, where various data sources were combined and analysed from multiple perspectives and at different levels, and as such the findings of the research cannot be easily summarised. The principal outcome of the research is the case study itself. The overall objectives of the research were primarily to provide a detailed account of the SASSA-Gate crisis and to further develop the theoretical framework for understanding the phenomenon of State Capture and how this relates to the concept of systemic neopatrimonialism. Ultimately, this research seeks to add further understanding of the current discourse on State Capture in South Africa and to provide a much needed, detailed account of how the shadow state operates and manoeuvres alongside and within formal government structures.AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING : Sedert 2016, toe die term die eerste keer in Suid-Afrika se polities-ekonomiese diskoers gebruik is, het die informele gebruik van die konsep “Staatskaping” ’n verteenwoordigende beskrywer van ’n staat in die greep van korrupsie geword. In 2017 het ’n groep akademici die State Capacity Research Project (SCRP) gestig en die Betrayal of the Promise: How South Africa is Being Stolen-verslag (Bhorat et al., 2017) uitgereik, wat een van die eerste pogings was om ’n akademiese raamwerk te voorsien om hierdie verskynsel te verstaan. Gegrond op die neopatrimoniale denkskool, redeneer hierdie verslag, en ek ook, dat “Staatskaping” meer is as bloot ’n vorm van “grootskaalse korrupsie”. Gegrond op hierdie raamwerk, ondersoek hierdie tesis krities die teorieĂ« van staatskaping en neopatrimonialisme, en doen aan die hand ’n konseptualisering van Staatskaping as ’n konteks-spesifieke verskynsel, wat ’n baie breĂ«r politiese projek omvat wat deur die mags-elite onderneem word, wat lei tot ’n unieke vorm van (wan)regering. In Julie 2018 is ’n opvolg-gevallestudie uitgereik, getitel How One Word Can Change the Game: Case Study of State Capture and the South African Social Security Agency (Foley & Swilling, 2018), wat ontwikkel is vanuit die navorsing wat vir hierdie tesis onderneem is. Die gevallestudie voorgehou in hierdie tesis sentreer rondom wat oor die algemeen na verwys word as “SASSA-Gate”, waar ’n potensiĂ«le nasionale krisis naelskraap afgeweer is toe die Konstitusionele Hof gedwing was om ’n reeds onwettige en ongeldige kontrak te verleng om te verseker dat die betaling van sosiale toelae aan ongeveer 17 miljoen begunstigdes sou voortgaan. Die basis van die krisis hou verband met die oorspronklike ongeldige kontrak, aangegaan tussen SASSA (die Suid-Afrikaanse Sosiale Sekuriteitagentskap) en Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) in 2012, wat sedertdien omhul is in kontroversie en bewerings van korrupsie. Te midde van die “SASSA-Gate”-krisis (asook die hoofmotivering vir die toekenning van die ongeldige kontrak) is CPS se patentregtelike biometriese kaarttegnologie. Uit die navorsing het dit duidelik geword dat moontlike insigte verkry kan word vanuit die toepassing van die konseptualisering van “Staatskaping” op die immer-groeiende onsekerhede wat geassosieer word met die toekomstige ontwikkelingsontwrigtinge, soos daardie wat geassosieer word met die Vierde IndustriĂ«le Revolusie (4IR). Hierdie navorsing is onderneem as beide ’n beskrywende en ondersoekende gevallestudie en word voorgelĂȘ in ’n kompakte narratiewe formaat. GranulĂȘre navorsingsmetodologie is onderneem, waarvolgens verskeie databronne gekombineer en geanaliseer is vanuit verskeie perspektiewe en op verskillende vlakke; as sulks kan die navorsingsbevindinge nie maklik opgesom word nie. Die hooftuitkoms van die navorsing is die gevallestudie self. Die algehele doelwitte van die navorsing was primer om ’n omvattende beskrywing van die “SASSA-Gate”-krisis te verskaf en om die teoretiese raamwerk vir die begryp van die verskynsel van Staatskaping verder te ontwikkel, en hoe dit verband hou met neopatrimonialisme. Op die lange duur poog hierdie navorsing om meer kennis te bou rakende die huidige diskoers van Staatskaping in Suid-Afrika en om ’n broodnodige omvattende beskrywing te verskaf van hoe die skadu-regering naas en binne formele regeringstrukture werk en maneuvreer
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