Research Output Repository (HSRC)
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On the margins of cultural policy: the unnaming of black women stage directors in the white paper on arts, culture and heritage
No full textThe inaugural 1996 White Paper on Arts, Culture and Heritage was created around democratic ideals of inclusion, access, and equal participation of everyone in South Africa’s arts and culture landscape. Subsequent iterations of the policy have re-positioned arts and culture as a market-driven sector, prioritising arts and culture’s profitability. While this shift is understandable considering South Africa’s enduring triple challenges of unemployment, inequality, and poverty, it locates Black women practitioners specifically—as the most historically marginalised group—obscurely within contemporary theatre directing. That the phrase “Black women” is absent across all White Paper versions demonstrates a lack of intersectional awareness. This paper analyses findings from a study about Black women directors across three of South Africa’s five state-funded theatres, namely Playhouse (Durban), Artscape (Cape Town), and Market Theatre (Johannesburg), over 20 years (1999–2018). While findings indicated that Black women (inclusive of African, Coloured, and Indian) consistently comprised the least number of directors that accessed these theatres over the period, this paper focuses on cultural policy. A content analysis of the White Paper, specifically the initial 1996 version, the first revision of 2013 and the effective policy of October 2017, found that the language used in these policies lacks an intersectional understanding of the extent of Black women’s historical marginalisation across all spheres of life. While cultural policy is not the sole reason for the under-representation of Black women stage directors at state-funded theatres, this analysis presents an evidence base to understanding how government policies can be enabling or exclusionary. A cultural policy framework that neglects to expressly include Black women as an identifiable category and does not include an intersectional analysis of their experiences, relegates this group of practitioners to the margins of an arts and culture landscape in a democracy.
Critical zones, disaster risk science, and education for sustainable development in Africa
No full textThis article examines the intersection of disaster risk science, critical zones, and education in advancing sustainable development in Africa. It unpacks these interrelated concepts and explores their interconnected roles within the broader social-ecological system. Critical zones, dynamic interfaces where biotic and abiotic components interact, are increasingly recognized as key areas for understanding the processes that trigger and intensify disasters. By analyzing the role of these zones in disaster emergence, the article underscores the need to integrate disaster risk education into the curricula of African educational systems. It further argues that education is pivotal in equipping communities with the knowledge and skills to manage risks, reduce vulnerabilities, and build resilience. The article advocates for incorporating disaster risk science at all levels of education, from primary to tertiary institutions, while embracing a holistic approach that includes both formal and non-formal education sectors. Ultimately, it posits that such integration will cultivate informed and capable citizens, thereby making education for sustainable development in Africa a tangible reality, with disaster risk reduction and mitigation as critical outcomes.
The emergence and sustenance of informal communities of care amongst migrant men in urban South Africa
No full textThe chapter draws together these two interlinked formations of masculine communities of care amongst migrants in Cape Town and Durban. The everyday care practices and internal solidarities amongst men are entangled in non-kin-focused networks of care and the obligation to support families and friends back home. We organise the sections around three often interlinked elements of caring masculinity as articulated by our interlocutors: to build solidarity networks, to maintain dignity as financial providers, and as a form of obligation and sacrifice for family. These emerge out of, or are rearticulated due to, various experiences of precarity and are therefore challenging to enact in informal and precarious migrant contexts; however, the communities of care help them to reassemble and redefine their representation of masculinities.
Cereal yield’s effect on greenhouse gas emissions in South Africa: examining the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis
No full textCereal crop farming in South Africa is critical in supplying staple foods and for generating export revenue. However, intensified farming practices are tied to significant greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, challenging national climate goals. This study employs the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis to analyze time-series data (1961–2021) and identify the cereal yield threshold where emissions begin to decline. The main goal is to find a turning point that balances food security with climate mitigation actions. Employing both parametric and nonparametric techniques, the analysis finds an inverted U-shaped link between cereal yield and emissions, with a turning point at 3.40 tonnes per hectare. The results confirm a nonlinear relationship, with linear and quadratic yield terms statistically significant at the 1 % and 5 % levels, respectively. Above the turning point, higher cereal yields correlate with lower emissions, supporting the feasibility of sustainable intensification strategies. These findings reveal a crucial emissions- reduction benchmark, linking mitigation measures with policy and supporting yield-linked carbon credit schemes to promote sustainable agriculture and lower emissions. The study advances EKC research in agriculture and offers actionable insights for integrating food security with the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). This research contributes to discussions on sustainable development and climate-smart agriculture.
Investigating factors associated with HIV risk perception among South African adolescents and youth aged 15 to 24 years: findings from the 2022 national HIV household based survey
No full textPoster presented at the CSIR Emerging Researchers Symposium, Pretoria, South Africa, 28-29 AugustAbstract not available.N/
Big-science, bigger returns: how the HSRC is helping Europe’s physics labs turn bright ideas into real-world benefits
No full textHow do breakthroughs at Europe’s big research facilities progress from concept to real-world application? HSRC researchers and their European partners used a six-dimensional framework to examine three projects funded by the ATTRACT initiative. This European programme bankrolls early-stage detection and imaging ideas from leading research facilities so they can be built into market-ready prototypes, to chart their early socio-economic pathways. The analysis tracks factors such as serendipity, knowledge spillovers, skills development, and spin-offs that shape each project’s route toward impact.
Invisible burdens: the emotional and physical struggles of women in informal backyard housing
No full textCape Town’s inadequate housing has led to a rapid increase in informal backyard dwellings—but what is daily life like for those living in these conditions? A recent HSRC study reveals the emotional, physical, and gendered toll experienced by women in these spaces, as they struggle for access to basic services, safety and dignity.
“If your CD4 count lowers, that is when you are similar to a person that is non-existent”: a qualitative exploration of perceptions around advanced HIV disease in South Africa
No full textDespite widespread availability and differentiated delivery of antiretroviral treatment (ART), advanced HIV disease (AHD) remains prevalent, with high mortality risk. In South Africa, we assessed perceptions about the
meaning of AHD and social and behavioural factors influencing AHD development. In-depth interviews were conducted with 13 PWH screened for AHD during a community-based tuberculosis triage trial, and five stakeholders involved in policy-making or implementation of AHD-related programmes. Two focus group discussions were conducted with seven study nurses and two with seven public sector nurses. Thematic analysis and data triangulation were performed. We found that PWH did not commonly know the term AHD and confused CD4 count with viral load testing. Perceptions about AHD among PWH ranged from AHD being a death sentence, causing opportunistic infections, to AHD diagnosis presenting a survival opportunity. Adherence problems and clinic avoidance were behavioural factors directly leading to AHD, with ART fatigue being emphasized by and in aging PWHs. The main themes which arose when discussing factors influencing AHD development, which were confirmed by different stakeholders, were (i) missed opportunities to (re)-engage in care due to clinic barriers, (ii) emotional stress and impaired mental health, (iii) alternative beliefs about medicines and health, and (iv) stigma, denial, and non-disclose. The term “AHD” was commonly unknown among PWH, while opportunistic infections were known. Structural barriers to care, mental health challenges, reliance on traditional medicine, and stigma, contributed to disengagement from care and progression to AHD in our population. These findings highlight the need to raise awareness about AHD among PWH and to create demand for CD4 testing, to implement effective welcome back strategies for those disengaging from care, integration of mental health screening for PWHs, and revamping community education to reduce stigma and improve ART and AHD-related literacy.
A not so chatty “chatbot”: co-designing to support first-time parents in South Africa and Portugal
No full textPaper presented at the ACM Conference Conversational User Interfaces 2024, Luxembourg July 8-10Innovations in chatbot technology have greatly accelerated in recent years, yet challenges persist in implementing them effectively for healthcare in diverse socio-economic contexts, especially in the global south. We engaged in two sets of co-design workshops that gave insight into the preferences of parents regarding chatbot design modalities but also uncovered constraints for our design including working with low-resource languages and limited internet connectivity. Though we set out for a chatbot to support first-time parents, our co-design in Portugal and South Africa resulted in the development of a "not-so-chatty" chatbot. Our intervention, ParentCoach App, is a question-and-answer informational resource presented in a chat-like user interface with search and menus for content exploration. We discuss the challenges of designing and implementing chatbots across different geographic and socio-economic contexts, presenting our resulting intervention and the preliminary findings from a two-week feasibility pilot with first-time parents in the two countries.N/
