UWC Scholar Publishing Support (University of the Western Cape)
Not a member yet
1520 research outputs found
Sort by
In Search of Congo\u27s Coltan
No full textBackground:
Bukavu is perched high above Lake Kivu. gently encroaching on the placid body of water between Rwanda and Congo. Once known as the pearl of Congo because of its beautiful climate and mountains, the Bukavu I found last summer (2005) barely resembles the famed city I heard about as a child. In the past ten years, South Kivu province and its capital city of Bukavu have been known for two things; insecurity and coltan. I came for both. In anticipation of the country’s first multi party elections in four decades, I wanted to understand the potential effect of insecurity on the elections and learn first-hand the role minerals such as coltan play in fueling insecurity. Four times the size of France, and as big as the United States east of the Mississippi river, Congo holds 80 percent of the world\u27s reserves of coltan, a heat-resistant mineral ore widely used in cellular phones, laptop computers and video games. The ore derives its name from a contraction of columbiumtantalite,, the scientific nomenclature
Commentary on War and Warlordism in Africa: The Role Of Western Democracies In Fuelling Africa\u27s Wars & Warlordism
No full textBackground: Some scholar, pcrceive conlflict as a mean of co-operation and a chance whereby problems could be solved in a contructive way. This has not prmed the case in Africa\u27s warlordism politics. Though warlord dairn their armed "struggtel" are all about making better the lives of their compatriot, their primary goal has frequely demontrateted quite the opposite
A Slice of Life, New York Style
No full textBackground: I was soaked. The rain was good. We needed it, after all those months of alarms about water shortage. It came down heavily without warning. The sky seemed to open up apocalptical, with blinding lightening and deafening thunder. Many umbrellas turned into wobbley satellite discs losing their fragile , alues in the end (although many in this land seem to be irretrievably wedded to their bauered umbrellas. I thought "Hmm"... When the good Lord decides to piss on us everyone catches it the same way
An octo-aesthetic figuration for learning in times of crisis
Get PDFThis theoretical paper mobilises a multi-modal figuration – octo-aesthetics – to argue for a transversal approach to HE (higher education) pedagogies appropriate to times of uncertainty. Using the eight independently thinking arms of the octopus as a guide, I deploy eight interrelated conceptual thinking aids to outline the relevance of an ethico-aesthetic paradigm to HE in times of individual, social, and environmental crisis. Deployed as speculative thinking aids, these octo- aesthetic figurations – schizoanalysis, bewilderment, shimmer, ecosophy, ecologicity, holobiont, trans-corporeality, and geontology – reclaim ‘vision’ and ‘objectivity’ from the disembodied all- knowing gaze of ‘Man’ and queer the central, and often unquestioned positions of privilege accorded to this viewpoint in humanist education systems. Calling into question anthropocentric binary/separatist humanist logics and assumptions of objective mastery, octo-aesthetic figurations reveal the onto-ethical outlines of a transversally situated learning modality that defies objectifying majoritarian modes of thinking/learning that are no longer appropriate to pedagogies in times of ecological calamity
Seizing opportunities: MOOC takers making time for change
Get PDFWe interviewed people living in African countries who have taken Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) created by the University of Cape Town to ask about their challenges, goals, and value studying online. They are drawn to taking MOOCs in part because of the claims around flexible learning opportunities for people with busy lives. A striking feature in these interviews is the many references to the challenges associated with negotiating time to study online. Here we wish to move beyond simply identifying deficit models of time or time management and rather seek to understand the value of MOOCs to people with work or career transition goals. The MOOC takers\u27 experiences are quite different to those in conventional degree courses as MOOC participation is voluntary and must be negotiated around existing commitments, suggesting a need for reframing of what is valued by people studying online in their own time.
Transforming University Education: A Manifesto
Get PDFAshwin, P. 2020. Transforming University Education: A Manifesto. London: Bloomsbury
Reviewer Thanks: 2019
No full textThe Editors would like to thank the following peer reviewers who kindly gave of their time to offer constructive and critical feedback to authors in 2019
Linguistic disobedience: Restoring power to civic language
Get PDFReview of: Komska, Y., Moyd, M. and Gramling, D. 2019. Linguistic disobedience: Restoring power to civil language. London: Palgrave Macmillan
