Rhodes University: Hosted Journals
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The Kowie Museum: Looking Back - and Forward
Get PDFThe establishment of our Museum and its subsequent 41 years as “the hub of historic Port Alfred” would never have happened without the perseverance, the vision, and the hard work of teams of dedicated people over the years – our Chairmen and Committee members, The Friends of the Museum, our Curators, our desk volunteers, our visitors, the supporters of our fundraising efforts, the donors of our collections, Our all-too-few but much appreciated sponsors, our local press, our security firm, even Lungisile Sinqe at Tourism who kept the keys for us and always had a smile when we collected them from him for our duties or meetings
East Cape Signal Towers in the context of the history of long- distance communication
Get PDFSending messages and signals over long distances has been a human endeavour since earliest times. Signalling has most often involved the use of some form of technology, although at times this can be as simple as the raising of an eyebrow or a wink at a meeting.
Up until the time of electrical and electronic impulses and their interpretation, nearly all signalling was dependent on the use of light (optical signalling) and occasionally sound. This article is confined to a brief historical overview of long-distance communication and some of the more significant technologies associated with these endeavours. It concludes with the construction and use of the East Cape Signal Towers in the 1840s.
Kwaito as history: Complicating contemporary historiographies
No full textConsidering it in relation to the earlier musical culture of kwaito, this article aims to begin a historicisation of the Black, township music of amapiano. “Kwaito as history,” much like the musical cultures in question, is ambiguous in that it considers kwaito and the musics that preceded it as part of amapiano’s history and as a tool to study the history of the latter musical form. I do this by positioning amapiano within a longer history of Black township music, focusing mbaqanga, bubblegum, and kwaito. In this article, I demonstrate how amapiano’s emphasis on dance; the role of the township; and broader conceptions of a Black South Africa no longer divided along ethnic lines can be traced back to earlier forms such as marabi and mbaqanga. I show how the music’s new modes of politics; the broad influence of Euro-American styles; and use of new technologies (specifically synthesised sounds) show a clear connection with bubblegum. Concerning kwaito and amapiano, I compare the issues of the date and place of origin; the role of international sonic preferences; the innovative approaches of young, Black township residents to music-making and dissemination. I have used existing historical accounts of Black, township dance music to demonstrate the multivocal and ambiguous nature of these histories
Analysis of the Nine-Tenths Mentoring Programme’s role in decolonising higher education in Makhanda
Get PDFThis research critically examines the potential and limitations of the Nine-Tenths Mentoring Programme at Rhodes University as a tool for decolonising higher education and enhancing epistemological access for historically disadvantaged students in Makhanda, South Africa. Initiated in 2016, the programme targets Grade 12 learners from under-resourced, no-fee schools, aiming to increase their chances of entering higher education. While the programme has successfully improved Bachelor-level pass rates and local enrolment at Rhodes, this study argues that true access involves more than just university admission. Conducted in 2021, the study uses qualitative data from 12 in-depth interviews with former Nine-Tenths mentees at various levels of study, ranging from undergraduate to postgraduate. The paper explores how the programme facilitates epistemological access, defined as the ability to engage meaningfully with academic knowledge, and its role in the decolonisation of higher education. Findings reveal that while Nine-Tenths bridges the gap between secondary and tertiary education, students continue to face substantial challenges upon entering university, including socio-economic obstacles, language barriers, and feelings of alienation within a historically white institution. While the programme marks progress toward decolonisation, deeper institutional transformation is necessary to achieve epistemological equity and create a truly inclusive academic environment. This paper concludes with recommendations such as enhanced first year support systems, targeted socio-economic interventions, and curriculum reforms that embrace diverse epistemologies. By emphasising the need to move beyond mere access to ensure meaningful inclusion and success, this research contributes to the ongoing discourse on decolonisation in South African higher education, and the urgent need for systemic transformation in historically exclusionary institutions
Youth Engagement Methods: Community-University Partnerships for Social Entrepreneurship in Resource Poor Communities
Get PDFThe university can be an enabler of positive transformation by engaging with various communities. By describing a methodological process followed in a doctoral study, this paper presents a participatory research approach with youth in a resourcepoor context to illustrate methodological pathways of inclusion. The paper also problematises the notion of social entrepreneurship and stresses the definitional challenges associated with the term. This is important to show the possibility of expanding the scholarly footprint of social entrepreneurship and universities’ important role and options in framing new approaches and methodologies within community university partnerships. A methodological primer is presented to show the methodological process, embedded in qualitative participatory research, that informed the study. The methodological process is rooted in the participants’ lifeworld and seeks to amplify local concerns and solutions. Community-university partnerships that respect aspirations and agendas of local communities inspired by collaborative, dialogical, transforming and respectful processes are identified in the paper as enablers of successful university-community engagements
We Can Lift Each Other Up: Reimagining a Mental Health Intervention as a Critical Service-Learning Initiative
Get PDFIn this paper, I suggest that ‘SHAER: Storytelling for Health, Acknowledgment, Expression and Recovery’ can be reimagined as a critical service-learning initiative. This suggestion is based on trying to make sense of two unexpected outcomes of implementing a mental-health intervention for women survivors of sexual and gender-based violence in Makhanda, South Africa. I argue that while SHAER was initially conceived as a mental health intervention, it creates an open space characterised by mutual recognition in which participants appear to others—disclose their identity and reality—and develop a critical consciousness. Drawing on the unexpected centrality of forward-looking, agency-affirming narratives of motherhood, rather than backward-looking, victim or survivor-centred ‘trauma stories’, I propose that SHAER offers a model for transformative community engagement in higher education institutions in South Africa. In its barest form, SHAER can be seen as a platform for fostering relational agency, self-authorship, and solidarity through narrative exchange and recognition. As such, SHAER aligns with the aims of what Tania Mitchell calls critical service-learning and John Saltmarsh and Matthew Hartley call democratic civic engagement and offers a powerful model for embedding community engagement within the academic project
A Multimodal Critical Discourse analysis of Peter Tosh’s “Mama Africa” album
No full textReggae music is known for its celebration of Africa as the ancestral homeland, a place of pride, liberation, and cultural identity. One reggae album in particular that contributes to this discourse is Peter Tosh’s Mama Africa, released in 1983. This article explores Mama Africa as a multimodal work to ascertain how the various modes of communication on the album combine to project it as a tribute or an ode to Africa. Attention is given to the album’s sounds, cover artwork, lexical items, literary devices, and other aesthetic matters, such as the length and arrangement of songs. The findings reveal that the album’s sounds and cover design, including the choice of colours and other symbols, suggest that Africa has a profound meaning for Tosh. Present participles loaded with emotional content, coupled with evocative noun phrases, also serve as conduits for this thematic expression. Literary devices such as personification, used in tandem with apostrophe, parallelism, allusion, rhyme, and illeism, contribute to this ode to Africa. The length and arrangement of the songs of the album tell a story in support of this tribute, revealing nuances that unearth Mama Africa as a work of virtuosity. The study suggests that a multimodal critical discourse analysis can be an effective tool for the study of music and foregrounds Tosh as an important figure who has contributed immensely to reggae’s celebration of the African continent and its people worldwide
