No. 17: Writing Xenophobia: Immigration and the Press in Post-Apartheid South Africa

The mass media have become one of the most important institutions in modern society, playing a role not only in our learning and education, but also in how we see opportunities for change and improvements in our lives. For these reasons, the media are seen as a powerful vehicle for social transformation and development, and have drawn increasing attention towards themselves in contemporary society. The print media (ie newspapers) are particularly important in this respect, given that the press has traditionally been a provider of information on daily events and, for many people, are the only source of information about events that are not experienced directly. This report discusses the South African print media’s coverage of cross-border migration in the post-apartheid period and how it may affect public opinion on the topic as well as immigration legislation. It is based on a survey that was the first, and most comprehensive, of its kind ever undertaken in the country, drawing on more than 1 200 newspaper clippings about migration from all English-language newspapers between 1994 and 1998. The report presents both a quantitative and qualitative analysis of this media coverage and offers a set of recommendations on how the press could improve its reportage in the future. In sum, the report argues that coverage of international migration by the South African press has been largely anti-immigrant and unanalytical. Not all reportage is negative, and newspaper coverage would appear to be improving over time, but the overwhelming majority of the newspaper articles, editorials and letters to the editor surveyed for this research are negative about immigrants and immigration. They are extremely unanalytical, uncritically reproducing problematic statistics and assumptions about cross-border migration. A large proportion of the articles also reproduce racial and national stereotypes about migrants from other African countries, depicting — for example — Mozambicans as car thieves and Nigerians as drug smugglers. This “criminalisation” of migrants from other parts of Africa is made worse by the more subtle use of terms like “illegal” and “alien”, despite their being roundly criticised by institutions like the United Nations for contributing to misconceptions of an otherwise law-abiding group of people. The aim of this report is not to convince the reader one way or the other about the merits or demerits of migration into South Africa. There is a vast and rapidly growing literature on the subject and the Southern African Migration Project (SAMP) continues to make contributions to this debate. Rather, our intention here is to remind the reader just how complex the migration debate is and how poor a job, in light of this complexity, the media have been doing in providing a more balanced, critical and reflective coverage of the issues. At best, the press have been presenting a very limited perspective on cross-border migration dynamics and, in the process, are leaving the South African public in the dark about the real complexities at play. At worst, the press has been contributing to public xenophobia generally through weaving myths and fabrications around foreigners and immigration. In terms of recommendations, the report makes four general points: Newspapers and wire services should assign one or two journalists to cover migration issues on a regular basis, with the time and resources necessary for covering the issues in an in-depth and critical manner. But resource constraints affecting newspapers militate against this idea; not every newspaper has the luxury of assigning a single person to a particular “beat”. However, given the importance of the migration issue at national and regional level (a point borne out by the sensational coverage already given it by the press), and the fact that it is destined to grow in importance over the coming years, there is justification in giving it the resources required for meaningful coverage. The fact that most of the daily newspapers are owned by only a handful of syndicates makes the resource issue less of a constraint if some of the research and writing were done in a more centralised manner. Journalists and editors should pay particular attention to how they report the immigration statistics they receive from “official sources”. An almost universal acceptance by the press of the misleading “fact” that there are somewhere between 2.5 to 4.1 million undocumented migrants in South Africa is a good example of the need for a more critical assessment of where these numbers come from, how they are obtained, how realistic they are, and what their implications are for thinking around cross-border migration. There is a growing body of literature on both the quantitative and qualitative impacts of migration in Southern Africa and journalists/editors should know what the debates are and who their sources are. Editors should attempt to strike a better balance in the coverage of migration issues. We recognise the need for free expression of ideas and it would be a serious mistake to ignore, or to try and cover-up, the widespread opposition to migrants and immigration that exists in South Africa. But newspapers also have a responsibility to recognise the need for more balanced coverage and should be willing to address the racist and nationalist immigration biases of the past actively. Journalists and editors should address the sensational and “criminalising” language used in articles on migration. The terms “illegal” and “alien” should either be dropped completely and replaced with more neutral terms like “undocumented” or “irregular” migrants and a clear distinction made between the different types of non-citizens in the country. Permanent residents, contract miners, tourists, refugees and undocumented migrants are very different categories of migrants and should be recognised as such

My Voice Is My Weapon

David A. McDonald rethinks the conventional history of the Palestinian crisis through an ethnographic analysis of music and musicians, protest songs, and popular culture. Charting a historical narrative that stretches from the late-Ottoman period through the end of the second Palestinian intifada, McDonald examines the shifting politics of music in its capacity to both reflect and shape fundamental aspects of national identity. Drawing case studies from Palestinian communities in Israel, in exile, and under occupation, McDonald grapples with the theoretical and methodological challenges of tracing "resistance" in the popular imagination, attempting to reveal the nuanced ways in which Palestinians have confronted and opposed the traumas of foreign occupation

The application of S isotopes and S/Se ratios in determining ore-forming processes of magmatic Ni–Cu–PGE sulfide deposits: a cautionary case study from the northern Bushveld Complex

The application of S/Se ratios and S isotopes in the study of magmatic Ni–Cu–PGE sulfide deposits has long been used to trace the source of S and to constrain the role of crustal contamination in triggering sulfide saturation. However, both S/Se ratios and S isotopes are subject to syn- and post-magmatic processes that may alter their initial signatures. We present in situ mineral δ34S signatures and S/Se ratios combined with bulk S/Se ratios to investigate and assess their utility in constraining ore-forming processes and the source of S within magmatic sulfide deposits. Magmatic Ni–Cu–PGE sulfide mineralization in the Grasvally Norite–Pyroxenite–Anorthosite (GNPA) member, northern Bushveld Complex was used as a case study based on well-defined constraints of sulfide paragenesis and local S isotope signatures. A crustal δ34S component is evident in the most primary sulfide assemblage regardless of footwall lithology, and is inferred that the parental magma(s) of the GNPA member was crustally contaminated and sulfide saturated at the time of emplacement. However, S/Se ratios of both the primary and in particular secondary sulfide assemblages record values within or below the mantle range, rather than high crustal S/Se ratios. In addition, there is a wide range of S/Se ratio for each sulfide mineral within individual assemblages that is not necessarily consistent with the bulk ratio. The initial crustal S/Se ratio is interpreted to have been significantly modified by syn-magmatic lowering of S/Se ratio by sulfide dissolution, and post-magmatic lowering of the S/Se ratio from hydrothermal S-loss, which also increases the PGE tenor of the sulfides. Trace element signatures and variations in Th/Yb and Nb/Th ratios support both an early pre-emplacement contamination event as seen by the S isotopes and S/Se ratios, but also a second contamination event resulting from the interaction of the GNPA magma with the local footwall country rocks at the time of emplacement; though this did not add any additional S. We are able to present an integrated emplacement and contamination model for the northern limb of the Bushveld Complex. Although the multitude of processes that affect variations in the δ34S signature and in particular S/Se ratio may be problematic in interpreting ore genesis, they can reveal a wealth of additional detail on a number of processes involved in the genetic history of a Ni–Cu–PGE deposit in addition to crustal contamination. However, a prerequisite for being able to do this is to utilize other independent petrological and mineralogical techniques that provide constraints on both the timing and effect of various ore-forming and modifying processes. Utilizing both bulk and in situ methods in concert to determine the S/Se ratio allows for the assessment of multiple sulfide populations, the partitioning behaviour of Se during sulfide liquid fractionation and also the effects of low temperature fluid alteration. In comparison, S isotopes are relatively more robust and represent a more reliable indicator of the role of crustal S contamination. The addition of trace element data to the above makes for an incredibly powerful approach in assessing the role of crustal contamination in magmatic sulfide systems

Mechanical Properties of Red Maple Structural Lumber

Efficient utilization of hardwood structural lumber depends on developing better procedures of grading and property assignment. In this study, we evaluated the properties of red maple 2- by 4-in. (standard 38- by 89-mm) lumber tested in bending and in tension and compression parallel to the grain and compared the results to published values derived by ASTM D 245 clear wood procedures. The results indicate that significant increases in allowable properties could be obtained using procedures based on tests of full-size lumber. The results also demonstrate that the relationships between lumber strength in compression parallel to grain and bending strength and between tension parallel to grain and bending strength are similar to those for softwood species. Thus, procedures used to assign properties to mechanically graded softwood species should be applicable to red maple

Simplicial Ricci Flow

We construct a discrete form of Hamilton's Ricci flow (RF) equations for a d-dimensional piecewise flat simplicial geometry, S. These new algebraic equations are derived using the discrete formulation of Einstein's theory of general relativity known as Regge calculus. A Regge-Ricci flow (RRF) equation is naturally associated to each edge, L, of a simplicial lattice. In defining this equation, we find it convenient to utilize both the simplicial lattice, S, and its circumcentric dual lattice, S*. In particular, the RRF equation associated to L is naturally defined on a d-dimensional hybrid block connecting $\ell$ with its (d-1)-dimensional circumcentric dual cell, L*. We show that this equation is expressed as the proportionality between (1) the simplicial Ricci tensor, Rc_L, associated with the edge L in S, and (2) a certain volume weighted average of the fractional rate of change of the edges, lambda in L*, of the circumcentric dual lattice, S*, that are in the dual of L. The inherent orthogonality between elements of S and their duals in S* provide a simple geometric representation of Hamilton's RF equations. In this paper we utilize the well established theories of Regge calculus, or equivalently discrete exterior calculus, to construct these equations. We solve these equations for a few illustrative examples.Comment: 34 pages, 10 figures, minor revisions, DOI included: Commun. Math. Phy

The role of cryptic dispersal in shaping connectivity patterns of marine populations in a changing world

Genetic connectivity directly shapes the demographic profile of marine species, and has become one of the most intensely researched areas in marine ecology. More importantly, it has changed the way we design and describe Marine Protected Areas across the world. Population genetics is the preferred tool when measuring connectivity patterns, however, these methods often assume that dispersal patterns are 1) natural and 2) follow traditional meta-population models. In this short review, we formally introduce the phenomenon of cryptic dispersal, where multiple introductory events can undermine these assumptions, resulting in grossly inaccurate connectivity estimates. We also discuss the evolutionary consequences of cryptic dispersal and advocate for a cross-disciplinary approach that incorporates larval transport models into population genetic studies to provide a level of oceanographic realism that will result in more accurate estimates of dispersal. As globalized trade continues to expand, the rate of anthropogenic movement of marine organisms is also expected to increase and as such, integrated methods will be required to meet the inevitable conservation challenges that will arise from it

Natural Language Processing with Small Feed-Forward Networks

We show that small and shallow feed-forward neural networks can achieve near state-of-the-art results on a range of unstructured and structured language processing tasks while being considerably cheaper in memory and computational requirements than deep recurrent models. Motivated by resource-constrained environments like mobile phones, we showcase simple techniques for obtaining such small neural network models, and investigate different tradeoffs when deciding how to allocate a small memory budget.Comment: EMNLP 2017 short pape

Probabilistic Sensitivity Analysis for Launch Vehicles with Varying Payloads and Adapters for Structural Dynamics and Loads

This paper examines Probabilistic Sensitivity Analysis (PSA) methods and tools in an effort to understand their utility in vehicle loads and dynamic analysis. Specifically, this study addresses how these methods may be used to establish limits on payload mass and cg location and requirements on adaptor stiffnesses while maintaining vehicle loads and frequencies within established bounds. To this end, PSA methods and tools are applied to a realistic, but manageable, integrated launch vehicle analysis where payload and payload adaptor parameters are modeled as random variables. This analysis is used to study both Regional Response PSA (RRPSA) and Global Response PSA (GRPSA) methods, with a primary focus on sampling based techniques. For contrast, some MPP based approaches are also examined