The impact of refugee-host community interactions on refugees' national and ethnic identities: The case of Burundian Hutu refugees in Johannesburg

Master of Arts - Forced Migration StudiesThe purpose of this study is to establish the impact of socio-economic interactions between Hutu Burundian refugees (living in Johannesburg) and South African populations on Burundian refugees’ national and ethnic identities. Although this is a case study on Burundian Hutu Refugees in Johannesburg, Rwandan refugees and South Africans were also included for comparative purposes. The snowballing technique was used to identify respondents and in-depth face-to-face interviews were used to collect data. Questions probed respondents’ pre-relocation national and ethnic identity loyalties; the nature and frequency of interactions between them and local populations and other foreign nationals; and the respondents’ current national and ethnic identity loyalties. The study finds that despite regular contact with the host populations, refugee respondents maintained their ethnic and national identities, thus challenging the assumption that to become uprooted and removed from a national territory automatically causes people to lose their identity, traditions, and culture. Further, apart from the adoption of some new situational practices particularly by refugee respondents, the study finds no significant ‘renegotiation’ or ‘contestation’ of group identities in the cosmopolitan Johannesburg as both South Africans and refugees/migrants in the city seem to be firmly holding on to their distinctive identitive ideals. Although not conclusive, the study suggests that the negative nature of interactions between refugees and the host society, which compromises the possibility of assimilation and integration, as well as other internal and external factors such as the refugees’ belief in the temporariness of their situation, may be among important factors that accounted for this maintenance of group identity

Migration, governance and violent exclusion: exploring the determinants of xenophobic violence in post-apartheid South Africa

Dissertation in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Migration and Displacement Studies, School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand April 2016Responding to inadequacies and limitations of current causal explanations for xenophobic violence which has become a long standing feature in post-Apartheid South Africa, this study proposes a Governance Model of Xenophobic Violence that provides a comprehensive empirically-based and theoretically informed causal explanation. It is a multivariate empirical and integrated theoretical explanatory model that identifies and explains the roles of - and the complex interplays between - the key determinants of xenophobic violence consisting of underlying causes, proximate factors and triggers. The six key determinants the model identifies are: deprivation, xenophobic beliefs, collective discontent, political economy, mobilization and governance. This study argues that these determinants and their interconnections in a value-added process constitute the necessary and sufficient conditions for the occurrence of xenophobic violence. I call it the governance model because of the predominant role governance plays in the occurrence of xenophobic violence. With underlying causes (deprivation, xenophobia and collective discontent) already established, the study pays particular attention to the often missed proximate factors and triggers (the political economy of the violence, mobilization and governance). It is through the findings on these new factors that the study introduces new empirical and theoretical insights and innovations to the understanding of, not only, xenophobic violence in South Africa but also collective violence generally. First, this study argues that xenophobic violence in South Africa is just ‘politics by other means and by doing so brings to the fore the often missed centrality of micro-politics and localised political economy factors as key drivers of collective violence particularly communal violence. Second, the study argues that that the triggers of xenophobic violence and of collective violence generally lie in the mobilization processes and not in the grievances and ensuing discontent as argued by many theoretical approaches to collective violence. The study suggests a new theoretical model, the Mobilization of Discontent Model, which captures the increasingly recognised centrality of mobilization as a trigger of collective violence. Third, the study argues that governance is a key determinant of xenophobic and collective violence but not necessary in ways often assumed or prescribed by time-honoured and widely accepted theoretical predictions, particularly those contending that collective violence and other forms of contentious collective action tend to occur in societies where mechanisms of social control have lost their restraining power. By demonstrating that local governance deliberately facilitated the occurrence of xenophobic violence in areas where it occurred by providing what I term micro-political opportunity structures, the study calls into question the common understating of the relationship between governance and collective violence and reveals some aspects of this relationship that are either misunderstood or undetected until now. The Governance Model of Xenophobic Violence this study proposes is an innovation that clearly illustrates the poverty of most explanatory models of collective violence, which makes it an appropriate tool for integrating empirical and theoretical knowledge from different disciplines and for identifying gaps in existing scholarship.MT201

Multiplex paper-based designs for point-of-care (POC) diagnostics

Background: Accurate and timely diagnosis is usually the first step towards appropriate disease management. In resource-limited settings, healthcare workers lack proper facilities to perform vital tests, and the diagnosis of disease is often determined by non-specific, physiological symptoms alone. Simple and rapid tests are needed as prerequisite tools for patient care and must conform to the criteria set out by the World Health Organization. To address the challenge of specific diagnosis for diseases that present with similar symptoms, multiplex diagnostic platforms must be designed.Methods: Simple designs for multiplexed paper-based diagnostic platforms were developed. Laser cutting and wax printing were used to create specific patterns on paper to guide the flow of sample and reagents towards reaction zones. Multi-arm and single strip multiplex platforms were designed and tested using Human Immunoglobulin G, Hepatitis B virus surface antigen (HBsAg), and Helicobacter pylori antigens.Results: All designs produced promising results with the lowest limit of detection for antigens being 30ng/ml for single strip designs.Conclusions: The use of glass fibre conjugate pad was found to be more sensitive compared wax-printed chromatography paper. Results from this study indicate great potential for further application in development of diagnostic low-cost paper-based diagnostic devices

Les instruments de la mémoire

Le rôle de la mémoire du génocide au Rwanda est principalement éducatif ; elle reprend le passé pour corriger le présent et assurer un avenir meilleur. Aussi les instruments de la mémoire mis en place par le gouvernement rwandais visent-ils à amener la population non seulement à lutter contre l’idéologie du génocide, mais aussi à découvrir la nécessité de se réconcilier et de construire une société unie. Les commémorations, les semaines de deuil, les sites mémoriels, par leur nature et leur message, sont pour les générations successives un rappel permanent de ce qu’il ne faut plus jamais faire. Cependant, ces instruments peuvent renfermer des germes de division, susciter des sentiments ambivalents, provoquer des réactions diamétralement opposées. L’analyse de leur fonctionnement met en évidence leur rôle ambigu et soulève la question d’une muséographie traumatisante.In Rwanda, the memory of genocide is kept alive largely for educational purposes—it looks back on the past in order to correct the present and ensure a better future. The instruments put in place by the Rwandan government to ensure continuance of memory seek to encourage the population not only to combat the ideology of genocide, but also to understand the need for reconciliation and construction of a unified society. By their very nature and their message, the commemorations, weeks of mourning, and memorial sites form a permanent reminder for successive generations of what must never be allowed to happen again. These same instruments, however, could well nurture seeds of division, give rise to ambivalent feelings, and provoke diametrically opposed reactions. Analysis of the ways these instruments work shows the ambivalence of their role and raises the question of traumatising museography

Les verbes de mouvement et l’expression du lieu en kirundi (bantou, JD62) : une étude linguistique basée sur un corpus

La thèse de doctorat s’intitule ‘Les verbes de mouvement et l’expression du lieu en kirundi (bantou, JD62) : une étude linguistique basée sur un corpus’. La thèse a pour but général la description systématique des propriétés sémantique et syntaxique des verbes qui encodent un événement de mouvement et la manière dont celles-ci interagissent avec l’expression du lieu, tout en se basant sur le corpus de textes en kirundi géré par le centre de recherches BantUGent. Cette étude a donc pour méthodologie de recherche la linguistique de corpus. Un événement de mouvement fait référence à une figure qui se déplace selon une trajectoire par rapport à un point de repère. Les verbes de mouvements qui encodent ce type d’événements spatiaux ont donc typiquement quatre composants: Figure (qui est en mouvement), Trajectoire (suivie par la Figure), Mouvement (y compris la manière dont se fait le mouvement) et (point de) Repère (l’objet de référence qui indique typiquement le But ou le Source du mouvement) (Talmy 1975; Talmy 1985; Wilkins & Hill 1995; Botne 2005). A base d’une étude détaillée et systématique de 17 verbes de mouvement, qui dénotent un déplacement total de l’objet, il est testé dans l’actuelle thèse si, en kirundi, les verbes de mouvement présentent ces mêmes caractéristiques essentielles et le cas échéant, si elles suffissent pour définir la structure événementielle de cette catégorie de verbes ou s’il est nécessaire de formuler des caractéristiques additionnelles. Dans le but d’approfondir notre connaissance de la façon dont est encodé le Repère dans l’expression du mouvement, la thèse vise également à faire une description détaillée et une quantification des moyens utilisés pour renvoyer à la localisation en kirundi, notamment les phrases nominales dites ‘locatives’ (Meeussen 1959; Sabimana 1986; Ntahokaja 1994; Bukuru 2003; Zorc & Nibagwire 2007). Afin de mieux comprendre comment la structure événementielle des verbes de mouvement en kirundi se traduit syntaxiquement dans leur structure argumentale, la thèse étudie aussi de façon systématique si la phrase nominale locative post-verbale marque vis-à-vis du verbe de mouvement la relation grammaticale d’objet, c’est-à-dire d’établir si elle reçoit les traitements morphologique et syntaxique qui sont normalement accordés au patient d’un verbe transitif primaire. De surcroît, il est examiné quel est l’effet du suffixe dérivationnel dit ‘applicatif’ sur les structures événementielle et argumentale des verbes de mouvements. Enfin, il est bien connu que les verbes de mouvement sont d’un usage fréquent dans n’importe quelle langue et qu’ils ont souvent un sens général, deux caractéristiques qui font qu’ils se prêtent bien au processus de grammaticalisation (Heine et al. 1991: 38; Hopper & Traugott 2003: 100). L’actuelle thèse a comme but d’établir si c’est aussi le cas en kirundi. La thèse consiste de six chapitres. Le chapitre introductif décrit le kirundi comme langue de recherche, les 17 verbes de mouvement sélectionnés dans cette étude, les notions de structure événementielle et structure argumentale, les questions de recherches et objectifs ainsi que la méthodologie appliquée dans cette thèse. L’expression du lieu en kirundi est décrite dans le deuxième chapitre. Le troisième chapitre se focalise sur les structures événementielle et argumentale des verbes de mouvement. L’influence de l’applicatif sur la sémantique et la syntaxe des verbes de mouvement est étudiée au niveau du chapitre 4. Le chapitre 5 examine l’emploi des verbes de mouvement -ja ‘aller’, -za ‘venir’, -geenda ‘marcher’, -va ‘venir de /quitter’ et -ca ‘passer’ dans des constructions grammaticalisées, plus précisément comme des marqueurs grammaticaux de temps et aspect. Les conclusions générales sont présentées au chapitre 6. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This PhD thesis, written in French, is entitled ‘Motion Verbs and the Expression of Place in Kirundi (Bantu, JD62): A Corpus-based Linguistic Study’. The general goal of the PhD thesis is to provide, on the basis of the Kirundi text corpus developed by the BantUGent research centre, a systematic description of the semantic and syntactic properties of movement verbs and the way they interact with the expression of place. The methodology of the PhD thesis thus pertains to corpus linguistics. A motion event refers to an object moving along a path with respect to another object. Movement verbs encoding motion events thus typically have four components: ‘Figure’ (i.e., the moving object), ‘Path’ (the trajectory followed), ‘Motion’ (including manner of motion) and ‘Ground’ (i.e., the reference object, typically Source or Goal) (Talmy 1975, 1985; Wilkins & Hill 1995; Botne 2005). Based on a detailed and systematic study of 17 motion verbs, referring to the complete movement of the entire figure, the PhD thesis tests whether Kirundi movement verbs display the same characteristics and, if so, whether these features are sufficient to define the event structure of this type of verbs or whether additional characteristics need to be formulated. In order to enhance our knowledge of the expression of the Ground in a motion event, the PhD thesis also gives a detailed description and quantification of place-denoting expressions in Kirundi, more specifically noun phrases commonly referred to as ‘locatives’ (Meeussen 1959; Sabimana 1986; Ntahokaja 1994; Bukuru 2003; Zorc & Nibagwire 2007). Aiming at a better understanding of how the event structure of motion verbs is syntactically rendered by their argument structure, the PhD thesis also systematically investigates whether the post-verbal locative noun phrase referring to the Ground functions as a grammatical object in Kirundi, i.e. whether it has the same morphosyntactic characteristics as the patient of a primary transitive verb. Moreover, the PhD thesis examines how the the so-called ‘applicative’ derivational suffix affects both the event and argument structures of motion verbs. Finally, it is a well-known fact that movement verbs are frequent in use in any language and that they tend to have a general meaning, two characteristics typical of source items in grammaticalization processes (Heine et al. 1991: 38; Hopper & Traugott 2003: 100). The present PhD thesis considers whether Kirundi movement verbs display grammaticalized uses. The PhD thesis has six chapters. The first chapter introduces Kirundi as the research language, the 17 selected movement verbs, the notions of event structure and argument structure, the research questions and objectives, and the methodology applied in this study. Place-denoting expressions and how to refer to them in Kirundi are the focus of the second chapter. The third chapter examines the event structure and the argument structure of the selected movement verbs and the way they interact. The influence of the applicative on the semantics and the syntax of motion verbs is studied in the fourth chapter. The fifth chapter examines the use of the motion verbs -ja ‘go’, -za ‘come’, -geenda ‘walk’, -va ‘come from/leave’ and ca ‘pass’ in grammaticalized constructions, functioning as grammatical markers of tense and aspect. The general conclusions are presented in the sixth chapter. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Het proefschrift/doctoraat heeft als titel ‘Bewegingswerkwoorden en de uitdrukking van plaats in het Kirundi (Bantoe, JD62): een corpusgebaseerde taalkundige studie’. De doctoraatsthesis heeft een systematische beschrijving van de semantische en syntactische eigenschappen van bewegingswerkwoorden in het Kirundi tot doel alsook een beschrijving van hoe deze categorie werkwoorden en plaatsbepalingen op elkaar inwerken. De studie is gebaseerd op een Kirundi tekstcorpus ontwikkeld en beheerd door het BantUGent-onderzoekscentrum. De methodologie van deze studie betreft dus de corpuslinguïstiek. Een beweging verwijst naar een een object dat zich langs een bepaalde weg voortbeweegt ten opzichte van een ander object. Werkwoorden die een beweging uitdrukken hebben bijgevolg typisch 4 componenten: ‘Figuur’ (het bewegende object), ‘Pad’ (de weg waarlangs het object zich voortbeweegt), ‘Beweging’ (inclusief de manier van bewegen) en ‘Grond’ (d.w.z., het referentieobject, typisch de Oorsprong of het Doel van de beweging) (Talmy 1975, 1985; Wilkins & Hill 1995; Botne 2005). Op basis van een gedetailleerde en systematische studie van 17 bewegingswerkwoorden, die allen een verplaatsing van de volledige figuur uitdrukken, gaat de doctoraatsthesis na of bewegingswerkwoorden in het Kirundi dezelfde componenten hebben en of ze, in het desbetreffende geval, afdoende zijn om de evenementstructuur van dit type werkwoorden te definiëren dan wel of er bijkomende componenten moeten geformuleerd worden. Om een beter inzicht te krijgen in de manier waarop het Kirundi naar de ‘Grond’ verwijst als deel van een beweging, geeft deze doctoraatsthesis ook een gedetailleerde beschrijving en kwantificatie van plaatsbepalingen, meer bepaald van nominale constituenten waarnaar gewoonlijk verwezen wordt als ‘locatieven’ (Meeussen 1959; Sabimana 1986; Ntahokaja 1994; Bukuru 2003; Zorc et Nibagwire 2007). Om beter te begrijpen hoe de evenementstructuur van bewegingswerkwoorden syntactisch weergegeven wordt in hun argumentstructuur onderzoekt de doctoraatsthesis op systematische wijze of de locatieve nominale constituent die naar de ‘Grond’ verwijst en in de zin na het bewegingswerkwoord komt de grammaticale functie van object bekleedt en of deze locatief dezelfde morphosyntactische kenmerken vertoont als het lijdend voorwerp van een primair transitief werkwoord. De doctoraatsthesis onderzoekt ook hoe het zogenaamde ‘applicatief’ afleidingssuffix zowel de evenement- als de argumentstructuur van bewegingswerkwoorden beïnvloedt. Tenslotte is het alom geweten dat bewegingswerkwoorden in de talen van de wereld veelvuldig gebruikt worden en dat ze dikwijls een vrij algemene betekenis hebben. Beide karakteristieken maken van hen ideale kandidaten om het proces van grammaticalisatie te ondergaan (Heine et al. 1991: 38; Hopper et Traugott 2003: 100). De doctoraatsthesis gaat na of bewegingswerkwoorden inderdaad grammaticale functies ontwikkelden in het Kirundi. De doctoraatsthesis bestaat uit 6 hoofdstukken. Het eerste hoofdstuk beschrijft het Kirundi als de onderzoekstaal en introduceert tevens de 17 uitgekozen bewegingswerkwoorden, de begrippen ‘evenementstructuur’ en ‘argumentstructuur’, de onderzoeksvragen en doelstellingen en de methodologie toegepast in de doctoraatsthesis. Plaatsbepalingen en de manier waarop naar hen verwezen wordt zijn het onderwerp van het tweede hoofdstuk. Het derde hoofdstuk onderzoekt de evenement- alsook de argumentstructuur van de geselecteerde bewegingswerkwoorden en gaat na hoe ze op elkaar inspelen. De invloed van de applicatief op de semantiek en de syntaxis van bewegingswerkwoorden wordt onderzocht in hoofdstuk 4. Hoofdstuk 5 richt zich op het gebruik van de bewegingswerkwoorden -ja ‘gaan’, -za ‘komen’, -geenda ‘stappen’, -va ‘komen van/weggaan’, -ca ‘langsgaan, passeren’ in gegrammaticaliseerde constructies, die dienst doen als grammaticale markeerders van tijd en aspect. Het laatste hoofdstuk geeft een algemene conclusie

Residential Building Permit Activity by U.S. Metropolitan Area: Key Agents of Change

Housing construction is considered a key parameter of the overall health of the U.S economy. Spatially, housing represents the largest single urban land use of most metropolitan areas encompassing about 35 to 45 percent of land in most cities. Based on a statistical analysis of U.S. Census data, and others sources, this dissertation provides answers to questions of why and how residential building permit distribution varies across the nation and what key determinant factors influence the geography of housing supply. This dissertation hypothesizes that in any given U.S. metropolitan area the amount of new privately owned housing units authorized by building permits per 1000 can be explained by a combination of three major groups of variables that includes: a group of indicators that measure the overall health and mix of the metropolitan economy, the effects of existing housing characteristics on supply and demand, and a mix of socio-demographic variables that trigger housing demand. The purpose of this dissertation project was twofold. First, this dissertation attempted to disentangle the fundamental contemporary growth patterns of housing markets by examining the spatial distribution of residential building permits by metropolitan area. Second, based on a statistical analysis of data, the most prominent economic, housing and socio-demographic characteristics that most significantly shape housing demand were to be isolated in an attempt to uncover the key triggers of residential development growth across the nation. The findings suggested that the most important variables that shaped building permit activity included the percent of the 2005 population attributed to net migration from 2000 to 2005, the percent housing vacancy rate, the percent of housing units built between 1990 and 2004, the percent population employed in health care and social assistance, and the percent elderly. Additionally, two regions of the country dominated residential housing market activity in 2005, and these included the South Atlantic region especially the Florida and Carolinas metropolitan areas, and some relatively isolated Rocky Mountain metroplitan areas. However, the Northeast and the Midwest metropolitan markets experienced below average permitting rates

Why history has repeated itself: The security risks of structural xenophobia

The South African government declared last year's xenophobic attacks over on 28 May 2008. As early as July 2008, it began to assure displaced foreigners that conditions were favourable for their return to affected communities, and that it would be safe to do so. Yet in the past year there have been repeated attacks in a number of the same communities that fell victim to immigration-control-by-mob in 2008. Why? In this article we argue that the state's reluctance to protect and assist foreigners in the past perpetuates violence, social instability and injustice – for nationals and non-nationals alike. We examine the source of this reluctance, and show how it creates the conditions for weak protection and judicial responses