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Multilingualism triangulated:: A systematic method for analysing multilingual contexts
Get PDFIn this article we outline a methodology for researching multilingual contexts – the triangulation of analyses. The key point of the methodology is to triangulate analyses carried out by different parties. It is a systematic way of incorporating different perspectives of the same documented communicative event in order to attempt a more holistic understanding of multilingual practices. We propose that the method can be useful to any researcher of multilingualism and applicable in any setting the world over. We describe the method illustrating step-by-step how we use it to investigate multilingual language use in the Casamance, Senegal with examples from our respective research. We conclude discussing how the triangulation method goes hand-in-hand with reflective practice, and thus offer insights into our changed thinking on how to study multilingualism using sociolinguistic, ethnographic-based methods, but most importantly incorporating different points of view
Linguistically World-Travelling’ and Speaking in a Bifid Tongue:: Contributions of a Latina decolonial feminist reconceptualization of the self to rethink multilingualism in a decolonial vein
Get PDFThis article draws a connection between Latina decolonial feminist reconceptualization of the relational and multiplicitous nature of the self, and the project and possibilities of rethinking the role of multilingualism in promoting epistemic justice and the reconstitution of the communal. In particular, the author dwells into Maria Lugones’s border dwelling ‘world-traveling’ modality (1987) of moving between mutually exclusive selves, and its linguistic possibilities to make room to multiple ontologies of speakers and languages, where the idea of language and speaker move in a process of complex communication. The goal is to extend this Latina decolonial feminist understanding of a new kind of self with an ambiguous, fluid identity, and who experiences a sense of constant in-betweenness that fosters unique modes of meaning-making which can offer a lens to interpret the possibilities for interrupting a modern/colonial ‘bifid tongue’ sense of multilingualism tied to a bordered conceptualization of languages, closed sets of meanings, and an isolated-autonomous self
Cracks and Crevices: Poetry
No full textYou wear nonchalance like a smileGlance at my afflictions from a mileFeeling, more or less inclinedDistance abstains you from the guiltSo I sit afar as I wilt..
Editorial: Why is South Africa\u27s food safety governance failing?
No full textIn recent years South Africa has seen spectacular and distressing instances of food poisoning in which people have died after eating contaminated food from retail outlets.In 2024, 23 children died in Gauteng after eating “snacks purchased from spaza shops” (Parliament, 2024). Others became ill and many were hospitalised. Between September and November 2024, a total of 890 incidents of food-borne illnesses were reported across all provinces in South Africa (Ramaphosa, 2024). “In most cases, the illness started after food bought from spaza shops were consumed, but to date, no one has been held responsible” (Korsten, 2025:13)
Strengthened or Sidelined? An Evaluation of Pledges to Eradicate Statelessness in the Southern African Development Community
Get PDFSince 2018, there has been a significant mobilization of developmental funding mechanisms and efforts to facilitate greater burden-sharing among refugee-hosting states and address protracted displacement. The Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) of 2018, seeks to harness this developmental approach – in particular, multi-stakeholder participation and a system of pledge-making – for the benefit of refugees and the communities that host them. Multi-stakeholder participation and pledge-making are common tools of a developmental approach to forced displacement more broadly, as well as statelessness, with the pledging system aiming to galvanize cross-sectoral collaboration, facilitate more predictable funding and provide a mechanism for the tracking of progress. Yet this system is still nascent and it remains unclear whether the long-term progress its enabling framework envisions is currently unfolding. This paper assesses whether the pledging system, as an operationalizing mechanism of the GCR and its framework, has contributed toward the efforts to eradicate statelessnessin the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Statelessness in the SADC – as is the case globally – remains a significant issue and an obstacle to accessing basic services and rights. The true scale of statelessness has consistently been difficult to gauge due to the lack of data collection on statelessness by most countries. While states in the region have taken steps to eradicate statelessness, the role that the pledging system plays in this endeavor has received little attention. The pledging system may be able to facilitate multi-stakeholder participation where there is already an impetus, but it is unclear whether it can address the systemic issues, such as discrimination, that underpin statelessness. Further, the pledging system is still in the early stages of configuring measures for transparency and accountability
Contested Karoo: Interdisciplinary perspectives on change and continuity in South Africa’s drylands
Get PDFAs I was reading this book, various keywords ‘jumped out’ from its 12 chapters. Using these keywords, I strung together asentence which (for me) encapsulates the take-home message of the book: The Karoo is a resource frontier entangled in jackal management and grapples with sacrifice zones, unjust sustainable development and dispensable indispensability.The Karoo is home to various in-demand resources − minerals, shale-gas deposits, renewable energy (wind and solar power), clear skies for astronomy purposes, fauna and flora and people. Unfortunately, its resource-abundant environments have contributed to the Karoo being a resource frontier − “a territory in which selected resources are up for grabs as new social forces move in to exploit them and in the process disrupt and displace prior arrangements” (Walker and Hoffman in chapter 12)
Beyond the “decarbonised minerals–energy complex”: Rethinking financialisation and state–capital relations in South Africa’s green hydrogen transition
Get PDFThis article interrogates South Africa’s green hydrogen ambitions as a key site of the financialisation of development. While hydrogen is increasingly framed through the lens of a ‘decarbonised’ or ‘financialised’ minerals-energy complex (MEC), such readings risk reproducing a power-bloc conception of finance that overstates its expansion while casting the state as a conduit for interests. Drawing on recent critical interventions by Reddy (2025) and Bernards (2025), in combination with initial fieldwork as part of ongoing PhD research, this article argues that these dominant frameworks obscure two central features of the current conjuncture: the persistent financing gap and significant institutional fragmentation within the state itself. Rather than demonstrating the consolidation of a ‘decarbonised MEC’ or the expanding dominance of finance capital, South Africa’s hydrogen landscape reveals the absence of substantial financial participation, alongside a state labouring − often unsuccessfully − to construct conditions of investibility. The article, therefore, calls for rethinking the political economy of hydrogen beyond inherited paradigms and reopening empirical inquiry into how state–capital relations are being actively assembled in the emerging hydrogen economy
Whose metaphor is it anyway? Analysing AI metaphors from positionality and values of speaker and recipient
Get PDFThis article builds on our earlier work on metaphors of generative AI as a route to developing critical AI literacy (Gupta, et al., 2024). Using a duo-autoethnographic approach, we analyse metaphors we have encountered in workshops, classrooms, and informal conversations. We reflect on how our positionalities shape how we receive and interpret these metaphors. Where possible, we also consider the context and likely values of the speakers who used these metaphors, while recognising that our study does not include formal interviews and therefore cannot fully recover speakers’ values. Rather than theorising metaphors in abstract terms, we examine the ethical and affective dimensions of specific examples, including “AI is stupid” and “AI as cane.” Our analysis shows how such metaphors can reinforce or resist ableism, epistemic injustice, and uncritical adoption of AI. We conclude by suggesting classroom practices that invite students to surface and critically examine their own metaphors for AI
Letter of support: African Student Law Journal publication
Get PDFThe Faculty of Law at the University of the Western Cape fully endorses the publication of the African Student Law Journal (ASLJ). This student-centred initiative creates a platform to facilitate student research through the ASLJ, which fits neatly into the University of the Western Cape’s (UWC) current Institutional Operating Plan (IOP) as well as the Faculty’s Strategic Plan.
After all, in an increasingly competitive environment, it is by design that the Faculty supports the publication of peer-reviewed student research to further debate in the field, and inform law, policy, and practice. It is notable that, world-wide, academic engagement is in part based on exposure to published research which enhances and strengthens students’ research skills, critical thinking, and experience. By focusing on undergraduates and master\u27s students, and their contributions to current legal debates through publications, students are called upon to think outside the box, identify the issues which have ignited debate in recent times in the various areas of law, and add their voice to these contemporary issues. Thus, the Journal provides a platform for undergraduate and master\u27s students to suggest solutions to the problems confronting the world, particularly Africa and the rest of the Global South.
With this as a backdrop, we look forward to increased collaboration and engagement on the African continent to widen the reach and impact of the ASLJ