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Introduction
Get PDFIn the piece ‘Creative Non-Fiction: A Conversation’, we argued that ‘creative non-fiction has become in a sense “the genre” of South African writing, [...] writing which makes its meanings at the unstable fault line of the literary and journalistic, the maginative and the reportorial’ (2011: 57): recently, the work of Sihle Khumalo, Jacob Dlamini, Max du Preez, Rian Malan, Kevin Bloom, Denis Beckett, Shaun Johnson, Antjie Krog, Jonny Steinberg, Stephen Otter, John Carlin, Njabulo S. Ndebele, Jeff Opland, Julia Martin, Sarah Nuttall, Liz McGregor, Hedley Twidle, Duncan Brown; historically, Sol T. Plaatje, Can Themba, Nat Nakasa, Todd Matshikiza, Alan Paton, H. I. E Dhlomo, and many more. Perhaps more broadly, and recognising the important work of ‘Northern’ writers in this genre, we would argue that creative non-fiction has become a particularly significant genre of the global ‘South’, in which its imaginative engagement with ‘truth telling’ has been profoundly enabling in narrating pasts and presents characterised by injustice, inequality, division, and the need to ‘uncover’. It has also enabled writers to bring their own singular life and surroundings into an imagined narrative
Nostalgia as a weapon … … and also a way to bring back the dream
Get PDFInstead of focusing on the elections and the implications of the polling outcome, ARI SITAS suggests we channel our pre-occupation with the past and our recent spate of commemorations of political and economic milestones into revisiting the ‘dream’ and restoring a commitment to hope.
The last two years have been all about political nostalgias in South Africa. They were marked by serious commemorative events that emphasised the “possible” that never was: 50 years since the Durban strikes, the spontaneous upsurge there of a black working-class; 40 years since the launch of the United Democratic Front (UDF), the unprecedented popular-democratic movement that challenged apartheid to its core. That was 2023
Persistent and obscene inequality: A post-apartheid policy choice
Get PDFHow is one to understand the poor economic performance of the South African economy since the end of apartheid SEERAJ MOHAMED argues that the post-apartheid government chose to adopt neoliberal economic policies rather than taking on a developmental state role. These policies opened the way for the large dominant corporations to pursue high short-term returns through misallocating capital from productive sectors towards speculation and “lazy” rent-seeking activities. In the process they denuded, deindustrialised and financialised the economy. Still today, the South African government (supported by elites of large corporations) ignores the lessons of history and pursues damaging neoliberal economic policies that impose an unprecedented degree of suffering on the majority of South Africans
A social realist view of contextual disruption through (un)conferencing
Get PDFDisruptions within higher education are seldom effortless and often provocative. They may result in a break from traditional, established educational models of knowledge transmission, offering alternative ways of accessing and cocreating knowledge. In 2021, the Higher Education Learning and Teaching Association of Southern Africa (HELTASA) adopted an (un)conferencing methodology for its annual conference. In this paper, the association’s Student Learning Project Team explores contextual disruption against the (un)conferencing backdrop. Critical reflective accounts by project-team members provide the empirical grounding for the paper. First, the notions of context and contextual disruption are discussed. Second, the reflective accounts are analysed using Archer’s structure, culture, and agency, as analytical framework. Third, Archer’s morphogenetic framework is used to appraise whether change or stasis occurred within the project team. Finally, recommendations for others wishing to facilitate intentional contextual disruption are shared. Ultimately, the article provides insight into the intricacies of contextual disruption as part of (un)conferencing
Shifting mindsets from conference to (un)conference: A collaborative reflective perspective on conceptual disruption
Get PDFThe move from the traditional academic conference format to a loosely defined format of unconference can be contentious and spark a robust debate on the conceptual disruption of conferencing. As part of HELTASA’s strategic plan of re-structuring and re-imagining its vision and purpose, it initiated a new way of conferencing; participant-driven and participant-focused. Through self-reflective written narratives, this paper explores three academic development practitioners\u27 experiences in planning and reflecting on the HELTASA’s (un)conference. We share our accounts of (un)conference as a conceptual disruption to the traditional conference format, concepts, and ways of doing and being. Qualitative data were collected from the three written narratives through a collective descriptive autoethnography research design and methodology. The insights collected are applied to the Conceptual Disruption Framework which proposes a tripartite framework for conceptual disruption, which distinguishes conceptual disruptions occurring at three levels (individual concepts, clusters of concepts, conceptual schemes), taking on two forms (conceptual gaps, conceptual conflicts), and leading to three distinct levels of severity (mild, moderate, severe). Using this framework, we describe our personal thoughts and perspectives in engaging with the novel approach of (un)conferencing. We probe into the potential of collaborative reflection to gain deeper insights and understanding of our shift from a traditional academic conference to a HELTASA (un)conference. We explore the discomfort, displacement, and learnings of the intentional disruption of our conceptual understanding of (un)conference practices. This paper highlights our shifting mindsets as we reflect and interrogate our thoughts and perspectives on the conceptual framing of (un)conferencing. The analysis of the data reveals that the engagement in the conceptual disruption of (un)conferencing together with the engagement with the concept planning and event provided the environment and atmosphere where the team appreciated brainstorming conceptual understandings, self-reflecting, and exploring different perspectives. This study provides empirical evidence of strength in collaboration, the building of conceptual disruption as a community of practice and possibility of (un)conferencing being a shape-shifter in higher education. At an interpersonal level, the process allowed us to self-interrogate the conceptual disruption, unpacking our thoughts and shaping our own thinking. The paper asserts that shifting mindsets from conference to (un)conference, involves conceptual disruption which is a messy process and requires a level of trust, openness, adaptability amongst all members of the organising team.
Book review: Machado de Oliveira, V. 2021. Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity’s Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activism. London: Penguin Random House.
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Sello sa ngwana (A child\u27s lament)
No full textOh! How sweet and loud the birds sing on this gloomy day!
Their songs break through the fog of grief.
My heart beats slowly and softly as the muffled drum.
Oh! how I long to shout and praise the Lord!
But my chest turns to heavy stone,
And I remember the fluttering leavings of May,
When the coldness of Winter crept into our home,
And began to seep deep into your bones.
In my heart I am left with the ruins
Of the memories we created.
I hold on dimly to the visions
Of the day I saw you last.
But I as close my eyes,
I see the cancer gradually eat away
The soft tissue of your skin.
And in my soul there still lies,
A yearning to call for the Lord!
In your final days you became even more beautiful.
The stars were written in the sparkle of your eyes,
As your heavenly wings began to grow.
But I was never ready for your flying away!
When you broke away through the winter snow.
Years later I stand before your grave and weep,
Like a newborn child – drawing his first breath.
You are a servant of the Lord before you are my mother,
And I know you rest well with our Heavenly father!
 
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