10 research outputs found
Sixth annual Julius Nyerere memorial lecture presented by Catherine A. Odora Hoppers in 2009
Sixth Annual Julius Nyerere Memorial Lecture Presented by Catherine A. Odora Hoppers in 200
Seeking partnership: the state, community participation and the provision of social services: analysis of experiences from Tanzania and Zimbabwe
A lecture paper on the participation of the community in social services.As a notion, the words 'participationâ and participatoryâ entered the development jargon during the late 1950s. The realization that the oppressed had not only failed to 'unfold like a flower from a budâ, but also that populations were kept out of all the processes related to the design, formulation and implementation of development programmes and projects led to the advocacy for the end of top-downâ strategies and the inclusion of participation and participatory methods as an essential dimension of development. As the 'Development Establishmentâ also began to realize the fact that billions spent on development was not producing the expected results, a new consensus was forged among planners, NGOs and field workers that a change in the relationships between the different parties to the development activities was imperative
Community engagement, globalisation, and restorative action: Approaching systems and research in the universities
This title is now published by SAGE Publishing. The new website for this journal is http://adu.sagepub.com/. Please be sure to update your bookmarks to the new website.It is clear that there is a wide range of arguments that reflect varying degrees of
disaffection with the university worldwide. A great deal of understandable effort
is directed at the impact of globalisation, especially the way it is making universities
engage in academic capitalism (Slaughter and Leslie, 1997). The alternative
arguments emphasise democratic internal governance and external community
service driven by the goals of social equity, democratic values, and concern for
the public good. Currie and Subotsky (2000) referring to the South African situation,
caution that without exploring the basis upon which reconstructive community
development can be institutionally operationalised, the twin goals of global
and redistributive development will remain unsolved. They point out the overinvestment
in accounting for the new organisational and epistemological features
of the âmarketâ university, policy and academic debates that are silent on the corresponding
features of the reconstructive development function of higher education,
especially in light of the widening disparity between conventional academic
practices and societal needs. This paper argues that the depth of that chasm
between universities and society reveals stories of death, humiliation, denigration,
racism, and epistemological disenfranchisement. The new social contract to be
contemplated should take into account the factor of amnesia and the concomitant
factor of the relevance of historical memory. Community engagement, reconstituted
in the twenty-first century, should be capable of leading the countries of the
Third World into new conceptual and methodological beginnings.School of Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Studies (SIRGS
Centre for African renaissance studies, the academy, the state and civil society: Methodological implications of transdisciplinarity and the African perspective
The Centre for African Renaissance Studies (CARS) at the University of South Africa was born in a political and social environment in which there is a new groundswell for a rebirth, where there are calls for ownership, accountability, excellence, responsiveness and substantive democracy on new terms. Surrounding the centre are the state, the academy and civil society, each with its limitations as well as possibilities for an institution that is established to foster, nourish and effect change in the context of the African Renaissance. The challenge before CARS is therefore one that involves the creation of new knowledge, analyses and interpretations of social reality on an ongoing basis. In working out its linkages and its strategies for dialogue, engagement and coâdetermination around the past, present and future of Africa, with players such as the state, the academy and civil society in general, therefore, the centre needs of necessity to clarify its position, role and vision in the field of knowledge production. It is here that transdisciplinarity signifies a distinct methodology in knowledge generation, development and utilisation. This article argues that the nature of the crisis we face today is definitely no longer that of âeconomicsâ, âpoliticsâ or âcultureâ per se; neither is it, for that matter, a crisis of the humanities versus the natural sciences; but rather it is one in which there is a peculiar convergence of all these factors and which, together, form an entirety exceeding the sum of its parts.School of Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Studies (SIRGS