Religion, class and culture : indigenous churches in South Africa, with special reference to Zionist-Apostolics

Part one establishes the problematic of this primarily historical and theoretical work on indigenous churches in South Africa. The existing literature is surveyed, explanatory themes isolated and a critique of the dominant functionalist framework offered. A different theoretical framework - historical materialism - is proposed, in order to bring new insights into the explanation of indigenous churches. A periodisation of the South African social formation, and three corresponding forms of indigenous churches is proposed. Part two considers each of these in a schematic form. It is hypothesized that Ethiopian churches arose at the turn of the century in the Transvaal and Eastern Cape amongst the emerging African petit-bourgeoisie. They were the religious response to unequal incorporation in the developing capitalist social formation. An early form of Zionism, Zion City Churches, arose between the two World Wars, in a period of intense resistance to proletarianization. In each region they were shaped by the particular conditions and conflicts. An attempt is made to demonstrate that, in contrast, Zionist-Apostolics arose after World War II as a church of the black working class. Instead of explaining them in terms of acculturation, it is hypothesized that their healing form can be understood as an expression and a protest of the alienation of the black working class. As a religious-cultural innovation they succeed in subverting missionary hegemony and gaining control over the means of salvation, and in this way, of their own lives. Part three attempts to evaluate the contribution of a historical materialist analysis to understanding religion, and to isolate directions for future research

Knowledge-intensive university spin-off firms in South Africa: Fragile network alignment

Presented at the GLOBELICS 6th International Conference 2008 22-24 September, Mexico City, Mexico

Global interactions between firms and universities: Global Innovation Networks as first steps towards a Global Innovation System

This paper aims to broaden the horizon as well as to shed further light on the studies of interaction between firms and universities in a global context. Its starting point is thus a review of two different strands of the literature on innovation. First, the literature on interaction by Klevorick et al (1995) and Nelson (1993), and second, the more recent literature on Global Innovation Networks (GINs) by Ernst ( 2006) and The Economist Intelligence Unit ( 2007). These strands share a common problem: each has a blind spot in relation to the core focus of the other strand. The literature on interaction does not consider the international dimension in any depth, and the GINs literature does not integrate the university dimension adequately. This paper addresses the common weakness through a combination of the two approaches, searching for interactions between firms and universities globally. In doing so, the paper also puts forward a tentative framework on global interaction between firms and universities.interactions between firms and universities, National Innovation Systems, Global Innovation Networks.

Bridging skills demand and supply in South Africa: the role of public and private intermediaries

Demand-led skills development requires linkages and coordination between firms and education and training organisations, which are major challenges considering that each represents a ‘self-interested’ entity. The need for a ‘collaborative project’ involving government, firms, universities and colleges, and other bodies is thus increasingly recognised. However, the crucial role of intermediaries has been largely overlooked. The article addresses this gap by investigating the main roles of public and private intermediaries across three case studies: sugarcane growing and milling, automotive component manufacturing, and the Square Kilometre Array sectoral systems of innovation. The research highlights the need for a move towards systemic thinking, to bridge across public and private objectives. It shows that private intermediaries play a larger role than is recognised in policy; that public–private intermediaries play crucial roles in coordination; and the potential for public intermediaries to contribute more effectively to systemic functioning

Higher education and economic development: the importance of building technological capabilities

Higher education and development has not been a priority of global policy or research funding in recent decades. Yet, since the millennium, Southern governments have become believers in the global knowledge economy and higher education enrolment growth has been phenomenal. In this paper we offer an original account of how higher education institutions contribute to economic development by drawing on evolutionary economics and the national innovation systems approach. This offers distinct advantages in conceptualising higher education's developmental role, through its stress on the importance of education, skills, work, innovation and production for economic development. Using these concepts, we examine how well South African higher education is positioned to contribute to economic development through a consideration of two case studies from astronomy and automotives. These highlight the importance of the intersection between global, national, sectoral and spatial dimensions of the education - economic development relationship. We suggest that dynamics at multiple scalar levels work in complex ways to shape possibilities for development. We argue that such an approach offers a way forward for international education and development thinking about the relationship between education, technological innovation, production and development

Knowledge-based development: The contribution of university-firm interaction in South Africa

Presented at GLOBELICS 2009, 7th International Conference, 6-8 October, Dakar, Senegal.Parallel session 2: University-industry linkagesOver the past two decades, there have been substantive shifts in the social compact between higher education and society. Unlike the centuries old tradition of the autonomous pursuit of knowledge and science, universities are now expected to be more accountable to society, the state and the market - in particular, more responsive to the demands of a global knowledge-based economy (Salmi 2007, Maassen 2006, Newman et al 2004, Audretsch and Phillips 2006, Jacob and Hellstrom 2000, Delanty 2000, Van Vught 2000, SAUVCA 2004). A decade ago, a world higher education declaration (1998) set out a key premise that has been influencing policy, research and university practice: Without adequate higher education and research institutions providing a critical mass of skilled and educated people, no country can ensure genuine endogenous and sustainable development and, in particular, developing countries and least developed countries cannot reduce the gap separating them from the industrially developed ones. The broad concern is with this changing role of higher education in relation to knowledge-based economic growth, innovation and development, for the countries of the South, which experience these new global imperatives under very different, often disadvantageous, conditions (Sagasti 2004). The specific concern of this paper is to explore the contribution universities make to national development goals through their growing emphasis on interaction with firms in South Africa, as a middle income country. It adopts a systemic lens to investigate universities as critical institutions in the South African national system of innovation, and focuses specifically on their direct role in supporting technological upgrading and firm learning. This choice of focus does not imply that a normative or reductive argument, to promote a single, narrow role for universities as ‘handmaidens’ of the economy or of firms. On the contrary, the multiple roles of universities, and the significance of universities as knowledge generators for the long term health of a science and technology system and for a national system of innovation are fundamental assumptions for the research approach (Nelson 2004). What the paper proposes to do by way of analytical focus is to place firms at the fulcrum of investigation, to address a gap in our current understanding of university-firm interaction in South Africa (Kruss 2007, Lorentzen 2009). Previous research on university-firm interaction in South Africa analysed the diverse ways in which different types of university are responding to and engaging with the global and local challenges, and developing strategies to link university-firm interaction with their institutional goals and mission (Kruss 2005a, 2005b, 2006). This work highlighted a tension between the financial and intellectual imperatives driving universities’ interaction with firms, and the potential consequences of different ways of resolving this tension for individual universities and for the higher education system as a whole. The present research accesses an emerging literature in relation to analysis of developing countries, framed in terms of national systems of innovation and ‘catch-up’ approaches, and foregrounding firm technological upgrading. In this manner, new insights may be injected into debate around higher education, innovation and sustainable development appropriate to South Africa. Section I of the paper will briefly set out the framework and datasets on which the analysis is based. Section II demonstrates that there has been a degree of maturing of the South African system of innovation, but significant system weaknesses, particularly in relation to education and human resource capabilities. Section III problematises the contribution of universities to goals of economic growth through technological upgrading and diversification of firms’ production activities in these conditions. The analysis is aggregated across the system and between specific industrial sectors, analyzing the extent and nature of firm demand for co-operation with universities in relation to their innovative and R&D practices. Section IV focuses on cases of university-firm interaction in health biotechnology, a sub-sector which South Africa has targeted as a priority, to explore the manifestation of contextually specific constraints and possibilities. The conclusion draws out implications for the changing role of the university in South Africa

Strengthening the interactive capabilities of public research institutes in South Africa

1 Context In South Africa, public research institutes (PRIs) face the dual challenge of linking their national system of innovation (NSI) to global knowledge flows and the frontiers of science, while seeking solutions to context-specific development problems. This study examined how five research-performing and -funding PRIs, responded to these growing demands of responding to the country’s growth and development agendas. It draws on research that explored the changing roles of science counci..

Linking universities and marginalised communities : South African case studies of innovation focused on livelihoods in informal settings

Co-published with HSRC PressThe knowledge imperatives of universities are explored in relation to the public good and social justice, as well as the roles of innovation and technology transfer. Case studies provide examples of coherence between teaching, research, innovation and community engagement, and illustrate the enablers and constraints to such interactions. The cases also suggest that a definition of innovation as ‘new products and processes’ may be too limited to capture innovation that is specific to local needs and/ or more related to social systems, than to the technology itself. The contribution of universities to innovation is a key driver of economic and social development

Researching Innovation in Low-Income Countries: The State of the Art

Atlanta Conference on Science and Innovation Policy 2009This presentation was part of the session : Policy Actors and RelationshipsHuman Sciences Research Counci