Multiple meanings of the middle class in Soweto, South Africa

This study investigated the meanings of middle class amongst those who label themselves middle class. 2559 people were surveyed in Soweto, South Africa biggest township. The study revealed that a diverse number of people call themselves middle class and defined class in terms of ability to afford basic goods. The label middle class seems also to denote self-sufficiency, responsibility and social mobility The paper concludes that studies of the middle class does not seen to focus on how social location affects the scope of people’s social world and their range of comparison

The Anxious and the Climbers: Ambivalent Attitudes Towards Democracy Among South Africa's Middle Class

Beyond the hopes placed in Africa's emergent middle class as an engine of economic growth, some analysts see this group as a bastion of political stability and enduring democratisation across the continent. This paper's approach differs from that of most studies, which treat the middle class as a homogeneous group, through two key contributions. First, using cluster analysis, I propose a novel way of conceptualising social class that broadly draws on the Weberian idea of shared life chances. I apply this method to South Africa and identify five social classes characterised by their members' living standards, overall life satisfaction, and self-perceived upward mobility. Second, the empirical analysis reveals significant discrepancies in attitudes towards democracy between the downwardly and upwardly mobile strata of the middle class, which I term the "anxious" and the "climbers", respectively. On the one hand, the "climbers" show the highest generic support for democracy as a form of government, whereas the "anxious" middle class displays feelings of resignation. On the other hand, I find indicative evidence of a status-quo bias among the "climbers". Rather than assuming a more demanding or critical stance in politics, they allow their political priorities to be at least partly shaped by an interest in securing and expanding attained living standards; being upwardly mobile is even associated with a higher tolerance for government attempts to constrain freedom of information, opinion, or expression

What it means to be Black in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Abstract: As the state of South Africa matures, questions attached to meanings of being ‘Black’ have become more pervasive, and the promised freedom is embroiled in sharpening contradictions and paradoxes. The construction and reconstruction of Blackness developed within capitalism, which is the cornerstone of structural racism. Inferiority complexes emanate from the process of construction, and the overlap between old and new structural contexts reconstructs Black ontology. Moreover, I argue that neither sociology nor Marxists have yet fully understood Blackness and structural racism, especially its political relevance. This dissertation highlights the importance of William Edward Burghardt Du Bois’ theoretical and methodological contribution in conceptualising the reconstruction of being Black, which is valued in South Africa and elsewhere. Seminal writers Frantz Fanon and Bantu Stephen Biko also inform my conceptual framework. However, the dissertation attempts to go beyond Du Bois’ concepts by connecting theoretical articulations with empirical evidence on how structural racism permeates and interacts with capitalism, in shaping what it means to be Black in South Africa today. Expanding on Du Bois’ methodology, this dissertation uses Conversation Analysis; I engaged with eight ‘elites’ and forty-six ‘ordinary’ people. The dissertation illustrates similarities and differences between the ‘elites’ and ‘ordinary’ people. ‘Elites’ are those who influenced the intellectual and political landscape, and the term ‘ordinary’ is used not in an ignominious sense, but to distinguish this category from the ‘elites’. A key empirical finding is that Blackness embodies multiple consciousness. I argue that being Black has multiple folds which interact and disrupt the collective history of oppression. Various dimensions such as childhood memories, language, culture, and ‘small freedom’ shape the reconstruction of Blackness. Among the ‘elites’ these dimensions were often articulated through a theoretical framing of what it meant to be Black. Among ‘ordinary’ people, the meanings attached to being Black were more fluid. Their articulations differed depending on class background, occupations, and where they went to school. This dissertation makes an original contribution by focusing on empirical evidence to show that Blackness goes beyond Du Bois’ double consciousness, and is embedded in multiple consciousness.D.Litt. et Phil. (Sociology

Ce2O3/BiVO4 Embedded in rGO as Photocatalyst for the Degradation of Methyl Orange under Visible Light Irradiation

A p–n heterojunction semiconductor structure composed of Ce3O4 and BiVO4 has been synthesized and then incorporated into reduced graphene oxide (rGO) by the hydrothermal method. The ternary composites were characterized by X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), electron diffraction spectroscopy (EDS), and UV–vis spectroscopy. The efficiency of the composites as photocatalysts was determined by studying the oxidative degradation of methyl orange in aqueous solution under visible light irradiation. The effect of parameters such as pH, catalyst loading, and concentration of the dye solution was examined in order to determine their influence on the photocatalytic activity of the composites. The composite incorporated into reduced graphene oxide presented the highest percentage (above 90%) in 2 h time, attributed to the effect of the increased surface area. The process of the enhanced photocatalytic activity has been discussed based on the energy band positions of the nanoparticles within the composite

Norms and Discourses of Class: Disciplining Young Educated Womxn’s Political Engagements in South Africa

Class-based analysis has become one of the key academic approaches to examining political behaviour in South Africa. As its usefulness in the context of high inequality is contested, this article seeks to contribute to the debates on its analytical potential based on interviews and group discussions with womxn studying at the University of Johannesburg. Drawing onFoucauldian theorising on power of norms and discourses, and theories of intersectionality,this paper shows that the expectations attached to middle classness and eliteness in South Africa contribute to the maintaining of the existing systems of power by seeking to discipline young educated womxn away from becoming political change-makers. The effectiveness of this class-based disciplinary power is in its embeddedness in other systems of domination, including gender, race and age. Thus, only within an intersectional critical framework, does the category offer a useful lens for understanding how power impacts South African politics