105 research outputs found
Can deliberate efforts to realise aspirations increase capabilities? A South African case study
This paper takes up Appadurai's suggestion that aspirations could be used as a key to unlock development for people who are economically marginalised, and that their capabilities could be increased by this approach. The notion of âaspirationsâ is theoretically and conceptually framed, and then Amartya Sen's use of the term capabilities as the space within which development should be assessed is explored. I subsequently describe a five-year programme in which economically marginalised women in Khayelitsha near Cape Town were assisted in voicing and attempting to realise their aspirations, while being assisted with access to some resources. Capability outcomes and constraints are described and analysed, and the question of adaptive preferences is addressed. I conclude that deliberate efforts to realise aspirations, accompanied by some facilitation, can increase capabilities, but that there are also structural constraints to capability expansion for these women that frustrate their aspiration of class mobility.International Bibliography of Social Science
Reconstruction of major maternal and paternal lineages of the Cape Muslim population
The earliest Cape Muslims were brought to the Cape (Cape Town - South Africa) from Africa and Asia from 1652 to
1834. They were part of an involuntary migration of slaves, political prisoners and convicts, and they contributed to
the ethnic diversity of the present Cape Muslim population of South Africa. The history of the Cape Muslims has been
well documented and researched however no in-depth genetic studies have been undertaken. The aim of the present
study was to determine the respective African, Asian and European contributions to the mtDNA (maternal) and
Y-chromosomal (paternal) gene pool of the Cape Muslim population, by analyzing DNA samples of 100 unrelated
Muslim males born in the Cape Metropolitan area. A panel of six mtDNA and eight Y-chromosome SNP markers
were screened using polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphisms (PCR-RFLP). Overall
admixture estimates for the maternal line indicated Asian (0.4168) and African mtDNA (0.4005) as the main contributors.
The admixture estimates for the paternal line, however, showed a predominance of the Asian contribution
(0.7852). The findings are in accordance with historical data on the origins of the early Cape Muslims.Web of Scienc
Contextualising Apartheid at the End of Empire: Repression, âDevelopmentâ and the Bantustans
This article examines the global dynamics of late colonialism and how these informed
South African apartheid. More specifically, it locates the programmes of mass
relocation and bantustan âself-governmentâ that characterised apartheid after 1959 in
relation to three key dimensions. Firstly, the article explores the global circulation of
idioms of âdevelopmentâ and trusteeship in the first half of the twentieth century and its
significance in shaping segregationist policy; secondly, it situates bantustan âselfgovernmentâ
in relation to the history of decolonisation and the partitions and
federations that emerged as late colonial solutions; and, thirdly, it locates the
tightening of rural village planning in the bantustans after 1960 in relation to the
elaboration of anti-colonial liberation struggles, repressive southern African settler
politics and the Cold War. It argues that, far from developing policies that were at odds
with the global âwind of changeâ, South African apartheid during the 1960s and 1970s
reflected much that was characteristic about late colonial strategy
The systematics and biology of the south African gall-inducing scale insect, Calycicoccus merwei brain (Hemiptera : Coccoidea : Eriococcidae)
The scale insect genus Calycicoccus Brain has a single described species, C. merwei Brain, which is endemic to southeastern South Africa. Females of C. merwei induce small, mostly conical galls on the foliage of their host tree, Apodytes dimidiata E. Meyer ex Arn. (Icacinaceae), which has a wider, mostly coastal distribution, than that currently known for the scale insect. Calycicoccus has been placed in the family Eriococcidae and may be related to the South American genus Aculeococcus Lepage. No other native eriococcid species have been described so far in South Africa, although the family is diverse in other Gondwanan regions. This paper summarizes the biology of C. merwei, redescribes the adult female, describes the adult male, the second-instar female and the first-instar nymphs for the first time, and reconsiders the phylogenetic relationships of the genus. The adult female is shown to have unusual abdominal segmentation, in that segment I is present both dorsally and ventrally, but a segment is absent ventrally on the middle abdomen. First-instar nymphs are sexually dimorphic; males have a larger and relatively narrower body, larger mouthparts, longer antennae and legs, and more thoracic dorsal setae compared with females. Molecular data from nuclear small-subunit ribosomal DNA (18S) and elongation factor 1 alpha (EF-1a) show C. merwei to have no close relatives among the Eriococcidae sampled to date. Instead, the Calycicoccus lineage is part of a polytomy near the base of the Eriococcidae. Molecular dating of the node suggests that the Calycicoccus lineage diverged from other eriococcids more than 100 Mya. These data support the placement of Calycicoccus as the only genus in the subfamily Calycicoccinae Brain
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