KovsieJournals - University of the Free State (UFS)
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See me and hear me: black South African women using YouTube as a site of belonging and visibility
Get PDFDigital technologies have created opportunities and threats in African feminism and digital scholarship, requiring feminists across the continent to rethink and reimagine their position in the digital sphere. Pre-colonialism African women were respected members of society. However, during slavery, colonialism and apartheid women where marginalised, victimised, and dispossessed socially, politically, and economically, making it difficult for them to be seen or heard. It is for this reason that post-colonial African thought is at the epicentre of foregrounding and reclaiming African intelligentsia. Digital technologies privilege Eurocentric knowledge; inevitably this poses a threat to the African gender transformation movement. African women face challenges such as the digital gender divide, cyber bullying, online violence, harassment, and gender bias datasets. To mitigate this gap, African women are curating transnational, transregional and transdisciplinary content to respond to and prevent all forms of online violence and gender inequality. This study argues that digital technologies can be used as a form of resistance to patriarchal, sexist, racist, classist and misogynistic ideologies about African women by creating feminist-driven podcasts, blogs, YouTube channels, websites and social media sites that work towards realising feminist futures free from violence and socio-political and economic injustices online and offline
Rights-based analysis of basic education in South Africa
Get PDFThe right to basic education is a fundamental human right, the realisation of which is dependent on the holistic fulfilment of all educational needs. The study reflects on the interpretation of basic education by the South African legislation, supported by regional and international treaties and case law. The analysis is anchored on the rights-based approach, as prescribed by the Committee on the Rights of the Child, General Comment 13. The study adopts a qualitative methodology which outlines thematic education challenges faced by children in South Africa, especially in the rural areas. These issues include poor schooling infrastructure, lack of water and sanitation services, discrimination, inclusive education, and harmful cultural practices. Thus, considering the role of various stakeholders in promoting basic education, the study recommends that concerted efforts be made to enhance engagement with local communities and civil society, and advocates for effective accountability mechanisms on implementing education policies in South Afric
Deradicalising student unrest in South Africa using decolonial approach
Get PDFSouth Africa has seen a surge in student protests, with virtually every institution of higher education experiencing some degree of disrupted productivity. This paper is a theoretical argument that presents the proponents of decoloniality as a tool to deradicalise students’ minds against radical student unrest in the university system and answers the question of how to deradicalise student unrest using decoloniality as a tool. The study is located with a transformative worldview, and the argument was analysed using conceptual analysis to make sense of the argument. The study is structured to explain what decoloniality is in relation to decoloniality of the minds, the assumptions, and its correlational evidence with the deradicalisation of student unrest. The findings revealed that disrupting colonial ideologies, knowledge reclamation, changing discourse structures, and decolonising practices are dimensions needed to decolonise student mindset towards deradicalisation of student unrest. The study concludes that these dimensions are the potential for peace and tranquility in the university system
Visiting the musicking space in-between music education and community music: The place where music-kings and queens hold sway
Get PDFMusic-kings and -queens are musicians who facilitate experiences in spaces where community music (CM) and music education (MusEd) make music. These musicians lead and facilitate musicking to enrich people’s music, social and cultural lives. This paper specifically explores two diverse projects occupying in-between musicking spaces that have been created by CM musicians and school learners. By recording and analysing the views, opinions, thoughts, feelings and experiences of CM musicians about their experiences in the in-between space with a view to possible collaboration with MusEd teachers in schools, this narrative inquiry uses vignettes to investigate how these musical monarchs create musicking experiences. However more than teaching skills, how they build social capital and promote social justice by making musicking accessible to children that are often excluded from music education in formal settings. The outcome is the model of the musicking umbrella that illustrates the coalesence; interconnectedness and relational nature of the in-between space. The musicking umbrella overarches all three musicking spaces and highlights the role of the community musician or music educator. While the practice of musicking is the rationale for the existence of the in-between space where creativity, innovation, and collaboration fuse and transform, adopting the appropriate learning approach help achieve authentic learning. This is combined with building social capital through networking in the community to empower and nurture people and contribute to social justice
Harnessing AI for peer-to-peer learning support: Insights from a bibliometric analysis
Get PDFThis study investigates the current use of artificial intelligence (AI) for peer-to-peer support through a bibliometric analysis of 1113 records based on co-words. The research employs a four-phase exploratory design that involves co-word search, data charting, and result summation. It uses an inductive, relevant, and reflexive thematic approach (TA). The theoretical foundation is grounded in retention, attrition, and learning theories, including personal, social, emotional, constructive, and humanistic theories. The analysis aims to determine whether institutions leverage AI for peer-to-peer learning as part of peer support. The findings reveal a significant gap in direct research on AI\u27s role in peer-to-peer support, underscoring the need for future studies on its impact on learning customisation, socio-emotional learning, and ethical issues in education
Self-realizing a lived existence in service of emancipation: Tsenay Serequeberhan’s activist hermeneutics
Get PDFThrough his own activistic hermeneutics, Sereque berhan crafts a philosophy which allows African(a) persons pathways to self-realization and self-emancipation from Western cultural imperialism. He does this through a unique reading of Heidegger to arrive at a hermeneutics of existence, and through Gadamer to posit a specific historicity which he calls ‘our heritage’. This article first charts how Serequeberhan articulates these concepts, and then explores their prescriptive, activist intent. The upshot of this is a stronger appreciation of Serequeberhan’s work and how it provides a fresh approach through which we can better understand existence in a globalized, postcolonial, late capitalist society. For Western readers especially, it offers a framework to better describe the relationship between, the self, others, and the historical interactions between them in a world fraught with enclosure and harmful ideologies
The pragmatic function of asides that stage an event in the Fourth Gospel
Get PDFThis article seeks to investigate how asides that function to stage an event in the Fourth Gospel fulfil their pragmatic/performative role. Despite numerous insightful contributions on this topic, the article contends thatscholars have not comprehensively explored this specific literary device in the Fourth Gospel. It therefore seeks to contribute to Johannine research by analysing these specific asides from a speech act interpretive perspective. It aims to demonstrate that these asides are inherently performative, representing a deliberate communicative strategy by the implied author to engage and compel participation from the reader. The article concludes that asides that function to stage an event play a performativerole and contribute to enhancing the attainability of the overall purpose of the Gospel (20:30-31).
Educational resources leveraged by students at a private higher education institution during COVID-19 pandemic
Get PDFIntroduction: The initial response of higher education institutions (HEIs) to the Covid-19 pandemic was to shift to online learning as a contingency. However, not all students were equipped with the appropriate resources to make this shift.
Research problem: There is scant contemporary research outlining the types of educational resources leveraged by students at a private HEI (PHEI) in South Africa during the Covid-19 pandemic. This limits the ability of PHEIs to develop targeted approaches for student success during similar disturbances.
Methodology: Using a quantitative research design, an online survey was administered to second-year to postgraduate students at a PHEI in South Africa. Of the 44 715 total student population at the PHEI, a sample size of 387 was targeted, with a total of 239 students responding to the survey.
Key findings: The study found that most students had access to resources during emergency remote learning (ERT), with family playing a key role in providing human and financial resources to the student, while the PHEI provided key material resources. Textbooks, data/Wi-Fi, laptop/computer, and mobile phones/smartphones were considered critical, with administrative and academic support staff, online lecturers, videos, and textbooks/eBooks playing a key role in the students’ academic performance.
Conclusion: By understanding the educational resources (i.e. human, material and financial) that were leveraged by students during Covid-19, PHEIs can streamline decision-making regarding operations, assistance provided to students, and manage online learning in a manner that mitigates pitfalls should events similar to the pandemic occur
Social restitution: tools and actions to rehumanise and transform injustice
Get PDFRestitution has predominantly been described as a legal rather than a social action in international law, as well as in South Africa’s history of truth, reconciliation and redress policies after the end of apartheid. Introducing the concept of ‘social restitution’ this paper argues for a reimagined and wider understanding of restitution to address the need for social justice in the spaces between the law court and individual acts of charity, and between policies for redress and personal antipathy against these. Social restitution can be defined as intentional voluntary actions and attitudes developed through dialogue based on a sense of moral obligation aimed at addressing the damage done to individuals and communities by unjust actions and legacies of the past. Drawing on international debates about and understandings of the meaning of restitution, social restitution is shown to be both continuous with legal restitution and distinguished from it through its voluntary nature, its potential to be forward-looking rather than punitive, generative rather than accusatory, and offering everyday opportunities to bridge the gap between ‘knowing’ about injustice and ‘acting’ to repair it. Following this discussion, the latter part of the paper outlines the need for new categories of actors in contexts of injustice beyond those of victim, perpetrator and bystander (the Hilberg triangle of actors), introducing the ideas of beneficiaries and resisters; argues for the potential social restitution has as a mechanism for rehumanising all actors; and offers recommendations for how engaged action-oriented dialogues might contribute to achieving this aim, while noting the limits and dangers of dialogue. It draws on an empirical study on the meaning and actions of restitution conducted with black and white adult South Africans in making some of its arguments
A Taxpayer\u27s Right to Fair Alternative Dispute Resolution
Get PDFBy GG 48188, dated 10 March 2023, the Minister of Finance (hereafter, the Minister) repealed the rules published in GG 37819, dated 11 July 2014 (hereafter, the old rules). In accordance with sec. 103 of the Tax Administration Act 28 of 2011 (hereafter, the TAA), the Minister published 68 new rules (hereafter, the new rules) which came into immediate effect. They delineate procedures for the efficient resolution of disputes occurring within the framework of secs. 101 to 150 of the TAA. Rules 13 to 25 deal with alternative dispute resolution (hereafter, ADR), a voluntary process undertaken on a without prejudice basis outside the formal litigation mechanisms prescribed by sec. 107(1) of the TAA. The new rules, like the old rules, provide for a forum where ADR can occur through private engagement between taxpayers and the South African Revenue Service (hereafter, SARS), with or without the aid of a facilitator, concerning a dispute subject to a pending appeal lodged under the TAA with the specialist Tax Board or Tax Court. In accordance with the rule of law, taxpayers are entitled to procedurally and substantively fair resolution of tax disputes by way of ADR. However, while the new rules serves as the source of a taxpayer’s entitlement to procedurally fair ADR, it is unclear as to the true source of a taxpayer’s substantive right to a fair ADR process. Is the source the new rules, the TAA, or sec. 34 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 (hereafter, the Constitution)? This article argues that sec. 34 cannot be the substantive law source of this right because its provisions, properly construed, apply to dispute resolution in courts, tribunals, and forums performing an adjudicative function after a fair public or private hearing. When ADR occurs through direct engagement between taxpayers and SARS without the aid of facilitators, then disputes are resolved by consensus through discussion and persuasion. Similarly, ADR through facilitated conciliation does not involve adjudication – facilitators make nonbinding recommendations and do not make final decisions on disputed issues of fact and/or law. This article argues that the new rules are not the source of a substantive law right to fair ADR for tax administration purposes. This article shows that a right of this nature is implied into the TAA when its relevant provisions in Chapter 9 are properly interpreted. It is argued that the scope of this right is to be determined by interpreting the new rule 17 and sec. 107(5) of the TAA through the normative spirit of fairness contained in sec. 34 of the Constitution