What the Aging is Going On: An ethnography on the Perceptions of Aging in an Old Age Home in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa

Despite considerable evidence on aging, as it relates to African elders, little is known on what and how it is like when drawn from their experiences and perceptions. This follows since it is often studied indirectly, as the emphasis is put on people with whom the elders are in relationships, obligatory or otherwise, and not necessarily on them. This also happens when aging is examined in relation to societal realities that shape how they experience the process of aging. In that, when societal realities in which they are embedded are examined, little to no effort is made to understand how they experience growing old in relation to or because of them. This dissertation explores perceptions of aging and what growing older is like. Using qualitative research methods in an old age home in KwaZulu Natal, the data to this dissertation was collected between June-July 2017 and December 2017-January 2018. Findings demonstrate that aging is a process of becoming estranged from oneself, from one's body, and from others. They reveal that, due to the collisions between physiological aging and aging in social terms, elders are simultaneously understood as people who must be respected and yet who can be estranged. Against this backdrop, from the vantage of the aged, they further show how death, living, and life are understood

Issues Influencing Black Learners’ Scholastic Experiences in ex-Model C Further Education and Training Schools

Published ArticlePost-Apartheid education in South Africa is seemingly characterised by an open and accessible schooling system that paved the way for numerous ex-Model C (historically White) Further Education and Training (FET) schools to enrol huge numbers of Black learners and are therefore professing to practice multicultural education. Many of these schools are challenged to adapt their admission requirements, policies and curricula practices as a mechanism of supporting Black learners’ experiences. The question therefore is, whether these schools are indeed practising multicultural education or whether they merely assimilating Black learners into the established school systems. With this background in mind, the purpose of this study was to investigate issues influencing Black learners’ scholastic experiences in FET schools in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. A quantitative study was employed in selected ex-Model C schools, using a sample of 1037 Black learners. A key finding revealed that White educators lack the knowledge and skills to teach Black learners and seemingly do not cater for these learners’ life experiences and world view orientation. In direct bearing to the latter, it is recommended that educators in ex-Model C FET schools of the Northern Cape province, should be exposed to training interventions initiated by the Department of Education

'We shall secede…' - narratives of marginalisation in post war participatory recovery of Acholi, northern Uganda

Set in a remote part of Acholi, on the northern side of Murchison Falls National Park, northern Uganda, this paper focuses on the efforts of the local community in Pabit Parish as they rebuild their agricultural livelihoods in the aftermath of the 20-year civil war. Their struggle to recover, however, hung in the balance as problem animals started to destroy their crops. Their recovery became even more uncertain when their efforts to dialogue with the government about the unfair wildlife policy remained unheeded. Meanwhile, the Acholi Culture and Tourism Centre project set up by Purongo Sub County Local Government to supplement the people’s agricultural livelihoods was marred in conflicts that threatened its very existence. What had started as a post war participatory development thus turned out to be an arena of conflict.Using ethnographic methods of data collection integrated within a case study, this study focuses on the tourism centre project. Premised on principles of participation, the project had been considered instrumental, not only in the protection of wildlife in Murchison Falls Park which would attract more tourists, and thus more revenue to the community from commercial tourism, but also through promoting agricultural livelihoods, the mainstay of the local economy. However, the reluctance of wildlife officials to engage communities in policy discussions, and internal weaknesses in the governance structural systems, combine to frustrate efforts in the local community to recover their livelihoods for a better standard of living

“When elephants come…” - Narratives of marginality in post war Acholi(’s) Murchison Falls National Park, northern Uganda

Set in post conflict northern Uganda, this paper analyses the challenges facing local communities living adjacent to Murchison Falls National Park in Acholi land as they grapple with efforts to restore their livelihoods, in view of costs and losses inflicted on them by problem animals. Their return to their villages after 20 years of the war between insurgents of Lord’s Resistance Army and the government of Uganda held a lot of promise. The state sponsored Peace, Recovery and Development Plan; donor funded projects; multinational agricultural companies setting up in the area; and the tourism revenue sharing fund; all pointed to an empowering recovery process for the local community to achieve self-reliance. However, the pain of consistent destruction of their crops by wildlife, an unfair policy on compensation of damage caused by problem animals, worsened by the government refusal to plan with the affected communities made them feel left out. This paper focuses on the Tourism Revenue Sharing Fund as a tool to analyse the costs and losses incurred by local peasants who continue to lose their agricultural livelihoods but whose appeals for dialogue continue to be ignored by the state. Data for this paper were collected using ethnographic methods that included in-depth interviews of key informants, observation, as well as both formal and informal interactions with members of the local community in Pabit parish of Purongo in Acholi sub region, and government documents