The construction of split whiteness in the queer films Kanarie (2018) and Moffie (2019)

After the end of formal apartheid, a number of South African feature films have explored queer white men in conservative social settings, with a particular focus on Afrikaans-speaking gay men. These films have reflected strict heteropatriarchal values within white Afrikaner culture where homosexuality is still often seen as a taboo topic. In this article I discuss two feature films with gay white male protagonists, Kanarie (2018) by Christiaan Olwagen and Moffie (2019) by Oliver Hermanus. These films both feature young men conscripted to fight in the South African Border War in the 1980s, but differ greatly in terms of genre, plot, and style. I argue that, while many scholars discuss whiteness as a general construct that affords privilege, the films demonstrate a split whiteness that is effected through the composition of particular shots and scenes as well as through the films’ processes of production and reception. Whiteness is split into an invisibilised, assumedly critical perspective on the one hand, with transnational links to the Global North, and a hypervisibilised, reified, and criticised racial identity on the other hand, located specifically in the heteropatriarchal Afrikaner male. Queer characters in both films are able to split their identities and dissociate from uncomfortable parts of their whiteness, taking on an assumed criticality that highlights their own oppression and exclusion. The films thus dismiss the protagonists’ complicity in white supremacy, and allow audiences to dissociate from their own complicity in anti-black violence and oppression

Queer South African vloggers use YouTube to build communities and challenge social stigma

YouTube is a powerful platform for queer South Africans to represent their lives authentically and to form supportive communities with other LGBTQ+ people. Challenging the erasure of queer people and realities in mainstream media, queer vloggers can point a mirror to homophobic and transphobic societies and respond to widespread feelings of isolation and social stigma

The unemployment challenge : Labour market policies for the recession

Over the next year another 50,000 people will become unemployed. The number of unemployed will surpass that of the last recession of 1997-98. To address the unemployment challenge New Zealand needs to supplement existing job search assistance with investment in training and business capital to push long term productivity growth. Subsidies to prop up jobs and firms should be avoided. The April 2009 QSBO found that a net 36% of firms intend to cut staff numbers in the next three months. Unemployment will be the worst we have faced since the 1991 global recession. With the peak in unemployment approaching, attention needs to shift now to the challenge of getting the unemployed into work. The temptation will be to artificially protect jobs. But this is short-sighted. The economic imperative should be to ensure New Zealand has the right human capital to prosper when the economy picks up. At first glance, recent initiatives (temporary top-up support for those made redundant and the 9 day fortnight) appear sensible. But they have downsides and should be removed after the crisis has passed. Also, because they are tightly targeted they will have little impact, and do not cater well for many of the 50,000 or so extra unemployed. These will be new entrants to the labour market or those employed by small firms. This policy gap needs to be filled to avoid high and long-term unemployment.Recession, unemployment, New Zealand

Occupational and Industry Forecasts of Employment: Implications for Maori

The period of low economic growth from the mid 1980s to early 1990s has impacted particularly severely on Maori. In June 1994 the unemployment rate for Maori was 19.8 per cent as opposed to 7.1 per cent for non-Maori. Maori tend to be over-represented in manual occupations and in a number of industries particularly affected by economic restructuring. As part of a wider programme assessing Maori development, educational and training options Te Puni Kokiri commissioned Business and Economic Research Ltd (BERL) to produce a set of occupational and industry forecasts of employment in New Zealand for the year 2000. 1991 Census material was used to provide a detailed 25 occupation by 21 industry analysis of employment differentiated by sex and ethnicity, which was used as a base for projections. The forecasts to the year 2000 have been generated through the linked usage of a medium term three sector model of the economy, which produces macro-economic trend forecasts, and a 21 sector version of the BERL general equilibrium model. The general equilibrium model has been extended to include 25 occupational categories and a vector of occupational substitution elasticities. The forecasts suggest that the predominant areas of employment growth will be in non-manual activities and in distribution and service industries

Building a Resilient Coast: Results from Focus Groups and Surveys with Maine Coastal Property Owners and Municipal Officials

This summary provides an analysis of information gathered in 2007 and 2008 during a two-year study conducted by Maine Sea Grant and the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, and funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The results were generated from broadly distributed surveys and six focus groups attended by Maine coastal property owners, municipal officials and recreational waterfront users. Findings highlight the logical steps needed to build coastal communities that are more resilient to coastal storms, flooding and erosion

The Relationship Between Workplace Practices and Firm Level Productivity in New Zealand

Raising New Zealand’s growth in productivity (ie output per person employed or hour worked) has become a topic of increasing political and academic debate. This has been driven by recognition that the relative decline in our incomes (compared to those of other developed nations) is a direct consequence of our inability to raise our productivity at a comparable rate. In this paper, we examine issues relating to achievement of productivity growth within organisations. We firstly contextualise this by providing a general overview of productivity trends, including the connection between firm­level and wider productivity. We then outline a framework for considering business practices and how these might affect workplace productivity; review New Zealand research findings about the relationship between workplace practices and firm­level productivity growth; and discuss the results of recent studies (done or funded by the Department of Labour) of change processes within organisations. From this, we conclude that there is a wide range of business improvement options, depending on the needs of the individual organisation; that significant improvements in workplace practices can be achieved; and that these contribute to a range of better operational outcomes. Ultimate benefits in productivity can be expected but are harder to attribute. However, the experience of the organisations studied highlights the challenges inherent in these processes, which require sustained commitment, and buy­in from people at all levels. There were significant differences in outcomes between those organisations that began with positive internal relationships and culture, and management leadership, and those where these conditions were absent

Split-Spinach Monitoring of RNA Aptamer Assembly

As insights into RNA’s many diverse cellular roles continue to be gained, interest and applications in RNA self-assembly and dynamics remain at the forefront of structural biology. The bifurcation of functional molecules into nonfunctional fragments provides a useful strategy for controlling and monitoring cellular RNA processes and functionalities. Herein we present the bifurcation of the preexisting Spinach aptamer and demonstrate its utility as a novel split aptamer system for monitoring RNA self-assembly as well as the processing of pre-short interfering substrates. We show for the first time that the Spinach aptamer can be divided into two nonfunctional halves that, once assembled, restore the original fluorescent signal characteristic of the unabridged aptamer. In this regard, the split-Spinach aptamer is represented as a potential tool for monitoring the self-assembly of artificial and/or natural RNAs

Expansive Framing as Pragmatic Theory for Online and Hybrid Instructional Design

This article explores the complex question of how instruction should be framed (i.e., contextualized). Reports from the US National Research Council reveal a broad consensus among experts that most instruction should be framed with problems, examples, cases, and illustrations. Such framing is assumed to help learners connect new knowledge to broader “real world” knowledge, motivate continued engagement, and ensure that learners can transfer their new knowledge to subsequent contexts. However, different theories of learning lead to different assumptions about when such frames should be introduced and how such frames should be created. This article shows how contemporary situative theories of learning argue that frames should be (a) introduced before instructional content, (b) generated by learners themselves, (c) used to make connections with people, places, topics, and times beyond the boundaries of the course, and (d) used to position learners as authors who hold themselves and their peers accountable for their participation in disciplinary discourse. This expansive approach to framing promises to support engagement with disciplinary content that is productive (i.e., increasingly sophisticated, raising new questions, recognizing confusion, making new connections, etc.) and generative (i.e., supporting transferable learning that is likely to be useful and used in a wide range of subsequent educational, professional, achievement, and personal contexts). A framework called Participatory Learning and Assessment (PLA) is presented that embeds expansively framed engagement within multiple levels of increasing formal assessments. This paper first summarizes PLA as theory-laden design principles. It then presents PLA as fourteen more prescriptive steps that some may find easier to implement and to learn as they go. Examples are presented from several courses from an extended program of design-based research using this approach in online and hybrid secondary, undergraduate, graduate, and technical courses.Indiana University Office of the Vice Provost of Information Technolog

Representations of fatherhood and paternal narrative power in South African English literature

Philosophiae Doctor - PhDThis study explores the different ways that South African novels have represented fatherhood across historical periods, from the dawn of apartheid to the post-transitional moment. It is argued that there is a link between narrative power and the father, especially in the way that the father figure is given authority and is central to dominant narratives which support pervasive ideologies. The study introduces the concept of paternal narratives, which are narratives that support the power of the father within patriarchal systems and societies, and which the father is usually given control of. This lens will be applied to prominent South African literature in English, including early texts such as Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country, Nadine Gordimer’s Burger’s Daughter and J. M. Coetzee’s In the Heart of the Country, where the father’s authority is strongly emphasised, and where resisting the paternal narratives often leads to identity struggles for sons and daughters. Later texts, published during the transition from apartheid, often deconstruct the narrative power of fathers more overtly, namely Mark Behr’s The Smell of Apples, Zakes Mda’s Ways of Dying and K. Sello Duiker’s The Quiet Violence of Dreams. More recent novels, published in “post-transitional” South Africa, are radical in their approach to father figures: fathers are often shown to be spectral and dying, and their control of narratives is almost completely lost, such as in Lisa Fugard’s Skinner’s Drift, Mark Behr’s Kings of the Water, Zoë Wicomb’s Playing in the Light and Zukiswa Wanner’s Men of the South. Exploring these shifting representations is a useful way to unearth how ideological and social shifts in South Africa affect the types of representations produced, and how fatherhoods are being reimagined

Occupational and Industry Forecasts of Employment: Implications for Maori

The period of low economic growth from the mid 1980s to early 1990s has impacted particularly severely on Maori. In June 1994 the unemployment rate for Maori was 19.8 per cent as opposed to 7.1 per cent for non-Maori. Maori tend to be over-represented in manual occupations and in a number of industries particularly affected by economic restructuring. As part of a wider programme assessing Maori development, educational and training options Te Puni Kokiri commissioned Business and Economic Research Ltd (BERL) to produce a set of occupational and industry forecasts of employment in New Zealand for the year 2000. 1991 Census material was used to provide a detailed 25 occupation by 21 industry analysis of employment differentiated by sex and ethnicity, which was used as a base for projections. The forecasts to the year 2000 have been generated through the linked usage of a medium term three sector model of the economy, which produces macro-economic trend forecasts, and a 21 sector version of the BERL general equilibrium model. The general equilibrium model has been extended to include 25 occupational categories and a vector of occupational substitution elasticities. The forecasts suggest that the predominant areas of employment growth will be in non-manual activities and in distribution and service industries